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.
By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated at 3:02 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. Top military and party officials, including uncle Jang Song Thaek, were also part of the lead group.
State media said the memorial route was about 25 miles long.
The procession was expected to head to the city's main plaza, Kim Il Sung Square, where hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have been paying their respects over the past 10 days. Sobs and wails filled the air as mourners in the front rows, bareheaded in the cold and snow, stamped their feet and cried as the hearse passed by.
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, have not been 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.?
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's 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 for link to 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.
The Associated Press, Reuters, msnbc.com staff and NBC News contributed to this report.
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