SEOUL - North Korea has honoured a 14-year-old schoolgirl who drowned in a flood while trying to save her Kim Jong-Il portraits.
Han Hyon-Gyong's heroism earned her the Kim Jong-Il Youth Honour Award, and her school will be renamed after her, the ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said on Tuesday.
Her parents, teacher and four others including Han's youth league leaders also received awards, said the report seen yesterday on the paper's website.
Han died on June 11 as she tried to save portraits of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il from her flooded home at Sinhung county in the eastern province of South Hamkyong, it said.
As she was swallowed up by gushing floodwaters, the girl held the pictures wrapped in plastic sheets above the surface, the report said.