Pyongyang, December 22 (KCNA) -- Officials of ministries and national institutions, South Phyongan and North Hwanghae Provinces and Nampho City and people from all walks of life Thursday visited the Kumsusan Memorial Palace where the bier of leader Kim Jong Il is placed and mourned his demise.

The palace where the national flag was hoisted at half mast was wrapped in profound grief over the greatest loss to the nation.

Laid there amid the playing of the funeral music were wreaths from the Ministry of Foodstuff and Daily Necessities Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports, the Ministry of Forestry, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Guidance Bureau for the Preservation of Revolutionary Relics, the Taesong Guidance Bureau, the General Bureau of Diplomatic Corps Affairs, the Grand People's Study House, the Academy of Agricultural Science, the Central Committee of the Korean Journalists Union, the Korean Taekwon-Do Committee, the Combined General Company for Fruit Farming, the mourners' delegations of South Phyongan and North Hwanghae Provinces and Nampho City and so on.

Mourners paid silent tribute to Kim Jong Il.

Meanwhile, party members, servicepersons, people and school youth and children across the country visited the mourning sites arranged at institutions, enterprises, factories, farms and schools to mourn Kim Jong Il's demise.