North Korea has arrested about 20 land ministry officials to hold them accountable for extensive damage caused by floods that ravaged the northeastern part of the country, an activist claimed Friday.

Security agents have arrested scores of officials stationed in North Hamgyong Province, which was recently hit hard by heavy rains in late August, according to North Korean defector Kim Yong-hwa, head of the NK Refugees Human Rights Associations of Korea.

The North Korean regime views devastating landslides and water discharged from reservoirs as causing deaths and property damage, he said.

Officials in charge of managing forests and reservoirs are at risk of being punished even though it was North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who ordered them to set up terraced fields instead of planting trees on mountains.

Heavy rains hit North Korea's northeast area in late August, leaving more than 130 North Koreans dead and about 400 missing, according to the Red Cross.

The North's leader has yet to visit flood-hit areas as work on rehabilitation has yet to be completed, Seoul's unification ministry said last month. It said that Kim visited the flood-hit border city of Rason last year after rehabilitation work was completed, a move seen as him taking full credit for the recovery.

On Thursday, North Korea's state-run broadcaster aired footage of North Korean residents praising Kim's 2015 visit to Rason where flood-damage restoration work was carried out.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said that the report may signal the North Korean leader's imminent plan to visit the flood-ravaged northeastern areas.

Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo told lawmakers on Friday that Seoul is not considering providing assistance to the North over the flood damage, given high tensions following Pyongyang's September nuclear test. (Yonhap)