Kim Jong-il has a network of secret tunnels as an escape route in case of emergency, according to a prominent defector.

Hwang Jang-Yop (86), a former secretary of the North Korean Workers Party, on Sunday told the Seoul-based Free North Korea Radio run by a group of defectors, "About 300 m below ground in Pyongyang, there exists a second underground world which is different from the subway level."

The tunnels stretch for some 40 to 50 km around Pyongyang linking to Nampo and Sunchon," Hwang said.

"The chief security guard for the subway construction site came and invited me to the site, asking me to mediate in a scuffle between soldiers and college students," Hwang said. "After I went down into the subway, I found another tunnel further down below."

He said there are countless such secret tunnels and underground facilities in Pyongyang.

Hwang is a former president of Kim Il Sung University.

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