SEOUL: North Korea has barred foreigners from a newly opened beach resort, the country’s tourism administration said this week, just days after Russia’s top diplomat visited the area.

The sprawling seaside resort on its east coast, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pet project, opened to domestic visitors earlier this month with great fanfare in state-run media.

Dubbed “North Korea’s Waikiki” by South Korean media, the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone appears to be lined with high-rise hotels and waterparks, and can purportedly accommodate some 20,000 people.

State media previously said visits to Wonsan by Russian tour groups were expected in the coming months.

But following Lavrov’s visit, the North’s National Tourism Administration said “foreign tourists are temporarily not being accepted” without giving further details, in a statement posted on an official website this week.

Kim showed a keen interest in developing North Korea’s tourism industry during his early years in power, analysts have said, and the coastal resort area was a particular focus.

He said ahead of the opening of the beach resort that the construction of the site would go down as “one of the greatest successes this year” and that the North would build more large-scale tourist zones “in the shortest time possible.”

The North last year permitted Russian tourists to return for the first time since the pandemic and Western tour operators briefly returned in February this year.

Seoul’s unification ministry, however, said that it expected international tourism to the new resort was “likely to remain small in scale” given the limited capacity of available flights.

Kim held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Wonsan last week where he offered Moscow his full and “unconditional” support for its war in Ukraine, KCNA reported.

Lavrov reportedly hailed the seaside project as a “good tourist attraction,” adding it would become popular among both local and Russian visitors looking for new destinations.

Ahead of Lavrov’s recent visit, Russia announced that it would begin twice-a-week flights between Moscow and Pyongyang.

PATNA, India: Lightning strikes during monsoon storms in eastern India this week killed at least 33 people and injured dozens, officials said Friday.

The deaths in Bihar occurred during fierce storms between Wednesday and Thursday, a state disaster management department statement said, with the victims mostly farmers and laborers working in the open.

More heavy rain and lightning are forecast for parts of the state.

Bihar state’s disaster management minister, Vijay Kumar Mandal, said that officials in vulnerable districts had been directed to “create awareness to take precautionary steps following an alert on lightning.”

The state government announced compensation of 4 million rupees ($4,600) to the families of those killed by lightning.

At least 243 died by lightning in 2024 and 275 the year earlier, according to the state government.

India’s eastern region, including Bihar, is prone to annual floods that kill dozens and displace hundreds of thousands of people during peak monsoon season.