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The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said a malfunction in the launch mechanism caused the stern of the as-yet unnamed 5,000-ton destroyer to slide prematurely into the water, crushing parts of the hull and leaving the bow stranded on the shipway.

. . . “If the ship does not move together, the stresses will tear the hull apart,” Sal Mercogliano, a professor at Campbell University in North Carolina and a maritime expert, told CNN.

Naval analyst Carl Schuster in Hawaii, after reviewing the KCNA account, said he thinks the stresses would “warp the hull, induce cracks and (possibly) snap the keel depending on where the greatest stress falls.”

Retired South Korean Adm. Kim Duk-ki told CNN that North Korea appeared to lack the necessary infrastructure – a dry dock – to launch a 5,000-ton destroyer, let alone recover and repair it. A dry dock is a basin facility that can be filled with water to float a ship or drain out to build or repair one. “Dry dock is an expensive facility, and North Korea probably doesn’t have one…

... Mercogliano, the US professor, said it’s unclear whether Pyongyang’s new warships even have engines as state media has provided no images of them underway. ((previous sentences were about NK's rushing the new warships' construction and launches for prestige purposes, and that this launch was an example of what can happen when things are rushed -Progree))