BEIJING, April 25: Injured children moaning in pain and burn victims with blackened faces were among those being treated in a poorly equipped North Korean hospital after a deadly train blast in which at least 161 people have died.
The horror of Thursday's explosion at North Korea's Ryongchon station met aid workers as they visited the Sinuiju Provincial Hospital, where many victims were taken, a World Food Programme (WFP) official said on Sunday.
"We saw children rolling and moaning in pain, many with a lot of cuts to the face and rudimentary twine stitching," WFP Regional Director for Asia Tony Banbury said by telephone from Pyongyang.
"Some of the kids had lost sight in both eyes. Two were laid out on cabinets. Several mothers had climbed into the beds of their wounded children," he said. The WFP saw the most seriously wounded victims, many of whom were children, he said.
The face of one 54-year-old woman was burnt practically beyond recognition, and she was in what appeared to be a comatose state, he said. Many of the patients he saw had faces blackened by burns and lacerated by the rubble and dust blasted into the air when two trains exploded at around midday on Thursday.
The lack of high-tech, modern medical equipment in the hospital, which has electricity and scores of dedicated medical staff in uniform, was heart-wrenching, Banbury said. Intravenous drips, a key way of feeding antibiotics and painkillers into seriously injured patients, were in scant supply.
"We have to get antibiotics to these people now," he said. Many victims appeared to suffer in relative silence as sombre family members kept vigil by their bedsides. Clean sheets were also needed to cover dirty mattresses occupied by many patients, Banbury added.
The hospital also lacked food supplies to cater for patients and their relatives in coming days, he said. The WFP delivered seven ton of food to the hospital on Sunday, including biscuits produced in a nearby factory that were normally distributed to schoolchildren. Wheat supplies granted to the hospital would be used for this evening's meals, he said. -Reuters
