3,000 dead or injured as trains collide: Disaster in North Korea
SEOUL, April 22: Some 3,000 people were killed or injured after two trains carrying fuel collided and exploded on Thursday at a North Korean railway station near the Chinese border, reports said.
A state of emergency has been declared in the area of collision and around, telephone lines have been disconnected and rescue work started.
The blast was so powerful that it destroyed the railway station at Ryongchon at around 1pm (0500 PST) just nine hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-II passed through it on his return from a trip to China.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which spoke of widespread destruction, said there were thousands of casualties and a state of emergency had been declared in the area and around the site near the border with China.
"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris flew high into the sky," Yonhap said, quoting unidentified Chinese sources. Neither Yonhap nor Seoul's YTN news channel gave a breakdown of deaths and injuries and there was no independent confirmation of the reports.
At least 3,000 people were dead or injured, according to YTN news channel. Yonhap, also citing Chinese sources, said the number of casualties could reach into thousands. South Korean media said the explosion occurred when two cargo trains carrying fuel collided at Ryongchon, 50km south of the North Korean border with China.
South Korean officials confirmed that a blast had occurred. "It is true there was a large explosion in North Korea today," an official told AFP. "We are still trying to confirm other details."
A defence ministry official told Yonhap they had yet to confirm "the cause of the incident, the kind of explosion and how many died". The entire area "was turned into ruins comparable to the aftermath of a massive bombing," Yonhap said, quoting witnesses.
North Korean authorities were investigating the cause of the accident, it added. But North Korea's official media was silent on the blast and the government immediately cut off international phone services to the devastated area in an effort to impose a news blackout, Yonhap said.
Many of the injured were taken to hospitals across the border in the Chinese city of Dandong, Seoul's MBC television said. Other reports said China had sealed off the border with North Korea at Dandong, on the rail line that leads to Ryongchon, a strategic coastal area.
One report said the gas that one of the trains was carrying was a donation from China to energy-starved North Korea, locked in an 18-month standoff with the United States over its nuclear weapons drive.
Only hours before the blast, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-II passed through the area on his special train returning to Pyongyang from a three-day visit to Beijing. Media reports here said there were no grounds to suspect foul play or an attempt on the leader's life.
An unnamed government source told MBC television the incident appeared to be no more than an accident. "I doesn't look like this has anything to do with terrorism," he said. China said that during Kim Jong-II stay in the country, Beijing had agreed to supply aid to North Korea.
Citing security reasons, Kim prefers to travel by train when travelling abroad to China, and also in a 2001 visit to Moscow. The sources said trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryongchon station 15km south of the Yalu river border near the Yellow Sea.
Yonhap also quoted a senior Defence Ministry official as saying the South's military had heard about the blast through "intelligence channels directed against the North". There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident.
NO MENTION: North Korea's official media made no mention of the disaster, but earlier on Thursday they broke their silence on Kim's three-day trip to Beijing - strongly suggesting he was safely back in Pyongyang.
International telephone lines to the area appear to have been cut to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added. The North's creaking medical system would be hard pressed to cope with a large number of casualties, but there was no word any international agency or neighbouring country had been asked for help.
"We have not yet received official information on the accident. We are trying to confirm the report," a Unification Ministry spokesman said in Seoul. Other officials at various government agencies also had no information.
At the United Nations in New York, a North Korean diplomat said he had no information except what he had heard from outside reports. Yonhap said the Chinese sources said people in Dandong were concerned their friends or relatives could have been caught up in the blast. Traders from both sides criss-cross the border area.
Injured, many of them ethnic Chinese, were reported being taken across the nearby border with China to the city of Dandong. Many were said to be Chinese living in the border region, prompting a huge local demand for information on victims from families and friends.
The reports were based on information from unnamed Chinese sources near the border with North Korea, said news agencies. North Korea has itself rarely reported such accidents in the past. -AFP/Reuters/dpa
