North Korea's hotel of doom has begun to stir from a 16-year coma.

According to multiple sources in the Communist country, work has restarted on Pyongyang's super-creepy 330m tall Ryugyong Hotel.

Looking more like a lair for an evil superpower, the hotel was started in 1987 but construction ground to a halt in 1992 amid rumours that funding had dried up and the hotel was engineered so badly it could never be inhabited.

But Egypt's Orascom group has come to the rescue and begun refurbishing the top floors of the building - putting in glass panels and installing telecommunications antennas.

But many experts worry the rusty structure - which has been exposed to the elements for 16 years - can ever be completed safely.

And maybe it shouldn't be. Apparently it would cost 10% of the starving country's GDP to finish the eyesore, which these days is airbrushed from photographs of the city.

If there is an upside to the stupidity of this project - it could be that it might finally allow one of its' most dedicated builders a change of scenery.

Local legend has it that a former worker is living in the rusted crane still atop the building, having refused to leave until work is restarted.