For 51 hours, the world had absolutely no clue.
The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was such a closely guarded secret that few outside the North Korean elite would even have guessed anything was amiss.
It wasn’t until North Koreans were instructed to listen to a special broadcast two days later that they found out Kim had been dead for two days.
The news sent shock waves not only throughout the secretive nation but across the Korean Peninsula, causing geopolitical tensions to rise.
When the country’s famous newsreader Ri Chun-hee, known as the pink lady for her iconic bright pink hanbok, appeared on TV screens dressed in black, North Koreans knew it could mean only one thing.
Fighting back tears, Ri broke the news to her people that their Dear Leader had died.
On December 17, 2011, the secretive nation’s second supreme leader had been on board a train. He hated flying, and always travelled by armoured train.
Ri revealed he had suffered a massive heart attack due to great “mental and physical strain” while travelling on a train to give on-the-spot guidance.
Videos and images at the time showed crowds of tears, people beating their chests and throwing themselves to the floor in floods of overwhelming grief.
Kim was just 70 and was posthumously declared Eternal General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).
