Who will replace Kim Jong Un in North Korea if he dies?

Seoul : North Korea has not made any official comment on the health of their supreme leader Kim Jong Un, but some reports claim that he is in a critical situation and may not survive for long.

There are also speculations on who will replace him as the North Korea leader if something goes bad. With no details available on his children, it is likely that his sister and loyalists could form regency until a successor is old enough to take over.

A wide range of speculations on his health erupted after his absence from public events since April 15.

Kim Jong Un had become the supreme leader of North Korea after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011 from a heart attack.

The country has been ruled by the Kim dynasty since 1948. So far, each of the three Kims to rule North Korea has held on to power with an iron grip.

About Kim Yo Jong

In the last two years, Kim Jong Un's younger sister has been the most visible presence around the leader, serving formally as a vice director of the ruling Workers' Party's powerful Central Committee but unofficially as her brother's chief of staff.

Kim Yo Jong was named an alternate member of the party's Central Committee Politburo this month, continuing her climb through the leadership hierarchy.

The leader's sister, believed to be 31, has firm control of key party functions, setting herself to be the main source of power behind a collective leadership.

"Kim Yo Jong will be for the time being the main power base with control of the organisation and guidance department, the judiciary and public security," said Cho Han-bum of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think-tank in Seoul.