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Updated at 8:08 a.m. ET
PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Wailing and clutching at their hearts, tens of thousands of North Koreans lined the snowy streets of Pyongyang on Wednesday as the hearse carrying late leader Kim Jong Il's wound its way through the capital for a final farewell.
Son and successor Kim Jong Un led the procession, which is part of a two-day state funeral. Top military and party officials, including uncle Jang Song Thaek, were also part of the lead group.
Sobs and wails filled the air along the memorial route, which state media said was about 25 miles long.
At the end of the procession, Kim Jong Un walked along with the limousine with his hand cocked in a salute. He stood head-bowed with top officials as rifles fired 21 times, then saluted again as goose-stepping soldiers carrying flags and rifles marched by.
The funeral procession, which began and ended at Kumsusan Memorial Palace, passed by huge crowds of mourners, most of them standing in the snow with their heads bare. Many screamed, stamped their feet, flailed their arms and wept as soldiers struggled to keep them from spilling onto the road.
The mourners included many members of the country's 1.2 million-strong armed forces.
Kim's two other sons, Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Chol, were not spotted.
Kim Jong Il, who led the nation with an iron fist following his father Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, died of a heart attack Dec. 17 at age 69, according to state media.
Heavy snow was falling in Pyongyang, which state media characterized in the early days of mourning as proof that the skies were "grieving" for Kim as well.
"How can the sky not cry?" a weeping soldier standing in the snow said to state TV. "The people ... are all crying tears of blood."
Wednesday's state funeral for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il capped more than a week of public mourning. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.
A national memorial service is due to take place at noon Thursday, state media said.
Updated at 7:03 a.m. ET: Speaking from Seoul, NBC News' Adrienne Mong tells TODAY that as video footage of procession was only available via state media, it is not possible to know how much of the grieving was "staged."
Updated at 6:28 a.m. ET: An essay in Workers' Party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun, which was carried in English by the Korean Central News Agency, says Kim Jong Un will take "warm care of the people left by Kim Jong Il."
Updated at 4:22 a.m. ET: Angus Walker, Beijing correspondent for Britain's ITV, examines why North Koreans haven't chosen this moment to overthrow the Kim dynasty. "The regime knows its power relies on the power of propaganda," he writes. "In North Korea he was the only hero, the only film and TV star, the only person pictured in the papers. North Koreans were told he was the most famous person on earth, in a world without Hollywood or the Internet many believe it, he was a religion, a cult, a god and a king combined."
AFP - Getty Images
This screen grab taken from North Korean TV shows a portrait of Kim Jong Il on a car arriving at Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
Updated at 4:15 a.m. ET: Britain's former ambassador to North Korea tells the BBC the future of the country's regime is "unsustainable".
Updated at 4:02 a.m. ET: Sky News' foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall questions how much of the emotion is real. "If the camera is on you ... you know what is expected," he says.
Updated at 3:02 a.m. ET: North Korea state TV broadcast of funeral procession ends.
Updated at 2:59 a.m. ET: Gunfire during ceremony "still doesn't mask the sound of wailing," NBC News' Adrienne Mong (@adriennemong) reports.
Updated at 2:50 a.m. ET: BNO News' Michael van Poppel (@mpoppel) cites North Korea state media as saying mourners shouting: "Fatherly general, don't go, please! Never, never! Come back please!"
Updated at 2:26 a.m. ET: Chico Harlan (@chicoharlan), the Washington Post's East Asia correspondent, tweets: "N. Korea is so close to comedy but obviously a tragedy. Seeing this guy, no matter the stagecraft, made me sad." Click here to see the photo.
Updated at 2:16 a.m. ET: BBC News' Lucy Williamson points out that many "senior military and party officials ... may well now be jostling for influence in the new regime.
"Some say North Korea's reluctance to open up the funeral ceremony to foreign delegations may signal that those hierarchies have not yet been fully agreed," she adds.
Updated at 2:12 a.m. ET: "After motorcade passed, some North Koreans seem to be leaving quickly," BNO News' Michael van Poppel (@mpoppel) tweets.
Updated at 1:38 a.m. ET: "I think a lot of that is fake crying," Los Angeles Times' Beijing bureau chief Barbara Demick tells Britain's Sky News. "There is a lot of pressure to out do your neighbor in showing your grief." Demick is also author of "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea."
Updated at 1:22 a.m. ET: Citing U.N. data, Reuters notes that the average North Korean now dies three-and-a-half years earlier than they did when "Eternal President" Kim Il Sung died in 1994.
North Korea is one of the most closed and poorest societies on earth, ranking 194 out of 227 countries in terms of per capita wealth, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Updated at 1:15 a.m. ET: NBC News' Adrienne Mong (@adriennemong) tweets that a "soundtrack of wailing" and "emotive announcer" feature as part of North Korean state TV's coverage.
Updated at 1:08 a.m ET: North Korea carried out a meticulously choreographed funeral for late leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday and affirmed that the country was now in the "warm care" of his young son, extending the Kim family's hold on power to a third generation.
Footage broadcast on North Korea's state television showed Kim's youngest son and successor Kim Jong Un walking next to his father's hearse.
Foreign dignitaries in the city had been asked to gather at a sports stadium shortly before noon to be taken to see the hearse pass at the start of the funeral procession through Pyongyang, according to a diplomat who asked that her name not be used due to the sensitivity of the details.
- SLIDESHOW: The life of Kim Jong Il
- SLIDESHOW: Reaction to death of Kim Jong Il
- SLIDESHOW: Journey into North Korea
- Browse more of msnbc.com's North Korea coverage
The Associated Press, Reuters, msnbc.com staff and NBC News contributed to this report.
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All the women in North Korea wailing and carrying on are faking it just like they do for their husbands when lovemaking!
Sounds like the voice of experience. Does your wife fake it too?
The people of NK see him as their God, they've been indoctrinated from birth with that. The Japanese would throw themselves on the sword if their Emperor told them to during WW11.
The Japanese again in WW11? What happened in WWs 3 - 10?
Stupid eh? LOL! Mindless little twirps!
lol
Awww that's so sad.
I'd be jumping with joy! His son is suppossed to be even worse and more cruel.......sad people know no better, just like an abused wife or child.......its all they know! One down, one more to go! All I can say is: Watch out for when his son takes the throne! South Korea bases are on edge due to the Maniac son to fill dad's seat................trouble for the US is coming!
Trouble for the US? Yes, because we just can't seem to keep our noses out of foreign affairs, no matter what it costs us.
Have you all forgotten already? GWB is still alive to finish what Kim started. He's perfect for the job. Or his old pal Dick Cheney.
Carl Heidelberg? Is that your real name? Just wondering? I knew a Carl Heidelberg.
Those are crocodile tears. Cry or die...
Or level of propaganda telling us how "evil" their leader is?
Those of you that have never lived under "evil dictators" don't realize that "evil dictator" is not much worse than corrupted government. In fact, it's the opposite. Evil dictators in most cases care for their country, corrupted government do not.
You Americans are quite lucky to have honest and loyal president like Obama, many countries are not so lucky...
LOL! Stop it! You're killing me! LOL!
oh my,that is too funny.Honest and loyal,to whom is he "honest" and it seems he is more loyal to any Muslim he encounters than the US taxpayers.
The headline for this story is both insulting and unethical, Kim may be dictator to America and others, he's surely an hero to his people. Americans and their likes think they are the wisest people, but other people look at them otherwise. It's incomprehensible that the Kim Dynasty is ruling on the basis of foolery, but the people are wiser to know that America does not help any country to achieve greatness. If I'm wrong, point at any such country!
@Tee-4000924
The headline for this story is both insulting and unethical, Kim may be dictator to America and others, he's surely an hero to his people. Americans and their likes think they are the wisest people, but other people look at them otherwise. It's incomprehensible that the Kim Dynasty is ruling on the basis of foolery, but the people are wiser to know that America does not help any country to achieve greatness. If I'm wrong, point at any such country!
That depends on how you measure greatness! Helping and dying for Europeans,and then rebuilding Western Europe and not destroy a defeated nation like every nation has done in the past is not only the most noble thing in history by the facts that Germany became a free autonomous country,a GREAT Nation in Euope after WWII ! I perceive your attitude to be a dislike for America! Get away from the Left Wing anti-American media and read up on the accomplishments that America has bestowed on the world and the greatness that came from a this nation!
You Americans take way too much credit for "your" achievements, such as the defeat of Nazi Germany. What role did the Soviet Union play in the fall of that evil empire? What about Great Britain? What about all of the Allied Forces, who regrouped and fought back against Hitler? "You" did not do this. "We" did-- and "we" includes you but does not *exclude* others. And in spite of whatever good America has done, that does *not* justify the evils that it has committed. Maybe you love your country just a little *too* much? Love is blind, after all.
Shandril, everytime I see a comment beginning with "You Americans..." I get my hackles up.
First of all, "We" Americans recognise we are part of a global community, and there are only a few arrogant individuals who run around screeching "I got the Gelfling! I got the Gelfling!" so you can ignore them...they are children.
For the record, "We Americans" are comprised of every race and nationality on this planet. We carry the heritage and legacy of every country on the planet. Why is that? It would seem to me, that "We Americans" are not the only ones "in love with our country".
BTW, "We" are not so much "in love" with our country, as "we" feel very fortunate to have been born here, as opposed to just about any other country on the globe. You get that much, right?
As a point of interest...Where are YOU from? Are you "in love" with your country? Given a choice, would you live there or here? BTW, does YOUR country take handouts from us?
The USA has a lot on it's plate, and regardless of how you perceive us, we are usually the first ones other countries come to for help. So while you are sitting there judging us, imagine what it would be like if we decided to tell the world to stop coming to us for help?
Maybe we should knock off the "global welfare" for a while, and see if people like you change your attitude about "us Americans".
Look at that PHOTO carefully of those people crying. Do you notice that the people, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA.....are making more FACIAL CONTORTIONS than the people.....WAY behind them. Did you NOTICE....anything PHONY?
I can tell that this photographer who took these pictures......works for the PRK (People's Republic of Korea). And...that the people making the MOST facial CONTORTIONS.....are doing this for SHOW.
There MUST be some CULT......going on here. Call it BRAINWASHING, LOYAL AS A DOG, LAPPING AT THE "DEAR LEADER'S" HEELS, anything you want.
The FREE people's of this world.....JUST CANNOT BE FOOLED, with all this "tomfoolery". It's almost LAUGHABLE......but really.......THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER. I take this very seriously. These people have become PUPPETS of the State.
If I was in their shoes...and I was ALWAYS HUNGRY.......I'd have something to say about all this. OR MAYBE....I JUST DON'T WANT TO LAND IN THEIR PRISON?
It JUST wouldn't "make my day".
Dump that crazy despot in a rice paddy and move on.
LOL @ the over-acted faces of despair in that one photo.
they are crying because of their next dictator.....you know i wonder..with all those people crowded like that ,,do you think anyone would need to pee or take a dump?? i sure as hell would.i mean if i ate grass all day i would be shartin...:)
I bet kim jong non didn't want to get up and head out in that weather, dead father or not.
What can you say about a country where mass starvation is the norm but the development and building of nuclear weapons is their highest priority. Reminds me of people with addiction problems showing up with their children to borrow money and using their kids to try and make you feel compasionate towards them. The world needs to wise up and stop supporting this country whose leaders use their people to make the world feel compasion towards them while using the aid we give them to achieve their real purposes - To be a nuclear threat to the Aisan Rim.
Yeah, it reminds me of how America dumps trillions into the war machine while it denies health care to 47 million of its citizens, screeches about how unfair it is to feed people who are unemployed in a devastated economy, and howls to cut off disabled and elderly people from all public aid...
Sobbing? What sobbing? There's no water whatsoever coming from the eyes of these people. The only folks crying are his two sons, and one's crying crocodile tears and the other has tears of joy.
Much more would turn out if Obama died.
AMEN Brother.
You pay respects or no rice rations for you.
CRY OR DIE!
If the plight of the North Korean people were not so tragic this article would be as hilarious as it is ridiculous.
Tragic? Tragic? You cry for them? They killed and tortured tens of thousands of American in the early 50'S. Many Americans grew up without their husbands and fathers. Didn't they teach you anything in High School or College? Dim wit eh? Cry for them? Never!
Total act!
SOBBING! YEA,they were chanting SOB! SOB! SOB!
I just want to know if Dorothy was able to get the broom from Kim Jung Il after he died?
Why do these people worship pictures and statues of their Dear Leaders so much? There was a NatGEO documentary on the DPRK called "Inside North Korea." Everywhere you see and in every household there are LARGE pictures of both elder Kims. It's sad that these people grow up being so indoctrinated and having fear of retribution instilled in them from an early age.
They are perhaps the only people on the planet that can "cry" and "mourn" and "wail" with not one tear shed. Calling the North Korean people's nation the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is the highest insult to the meaning of Democracy and Republic.
The people of NK see him as their God, they've been indoctrinated from birth with that. The Japanese would throw themselves on the sword if their Emperor told them to during WW11.
Tears of joy can be confused with tears of sorrow.
Too bad he's gone. GWB and Cheney will be lonely now.
amazing,Obama is a Socialist which is 1st Cousin to a Communist and you compare Bush and Cheney to Kim the Commie.You've been brain washed Carl.Get help!!!!!!
Feed him to the worms already!!!!!