The huge project which would have taken more than 10 years at an ordinary pace has been completed in the main in a matter of just two years thanks to the heroic drive of soldier-builders of the Korean People's Army who broke the ground in April, 2009. As a result, there appeared a huge dam of eternal value on the upper reaches of the Jangja River flowing between high mountains.

They wound up the project to build a temporary drainageway in July, three months after the ground-breaking, which would have taken two years at an ordinary pace, in the wake of their successful completion of the project to build a cofferdam.

The dam ground digging and the ground concrete tamping were pushed forward simultaneously, making it possible to finish in a matter of just five months the amount of work to be done for several years and bringing the construction of the temporary drainageway and the dam ground digging to completion. This was a miraculous success unprecedented in the history of hydropower station construction.

General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited the construction site in September, 2009 and called this high speed a new Chollima Speed, the Huichon Speed as it brought about a steady leap forward and innovations and a world-startling miracle. He warmly encouraged the soldier-builders.

He visited the construction site four times in 2010, leading the KPA to take the lead in the great drive for building a thriving nation and clearly indicating the road for them to follow.

The soldier-builders introduced an efficient method of concrete tamping through a high-pitched drive for mechanization and a three-dimensional campaign, opening a prospect for winding up the dam project in the shortest possible period.

They carried out the concrete tamping on the main part of the dam and the project to excavate bedrock on the left and right sides of the dam simultaneously and introduced drilling and blasting methods suited to different kinds of rock and conducted a competition, increasing the amount of excavated bedrock 10 times.

Concrete tamping was done in the entire length of the dam and work made rapid progress on the left and right sides of the dam and in its central part simultaneously. This resulted in bringing about such unprecedented success as tamping more than 10,000 cubic meters of concrete a day.

80 percent of concrete tamping of the dam was done in a matter of little over one and half years from the ground-breaking and such projects as the building of a bridge beam of a spillway, an emergency sluice gate, a frame of logs and the road extension made rapid progress at their final phase.

This has opened a bright prospect for completing the construction of the Huichon Power Station by 2012, the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung.