(Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

[Anchor]

North Korean state media says leader Kim Jong-un has admitted the food situation in his country is tense and that shortages are possible.

The BBC's Michael Bristow reports.

[Reporter]

Mr. Kim told a meeting of senior leaders that the food situation was as he put it "getting tense."

He said the agriculture sector failed to produce enough grain, blaming last year's typhoons, which caused widespread flooding.

North Korea is also struggling because of international sanctions imposed because of its nuclear programs, and it closed its borders last year to keep out the coronavirus, forcing trade with its most important ally China to fall by 80 percent.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died in a famine in the 1990s.

It's thought that 10 million could be going hungry now.