SEOUL, April 24: North Korea's rail disaster has blocked a main conduit for aid and could force the reclusive state to deal with the world more openly and transparently than ever before, a veteran medical aid worker said on Saturday.

German medical doctor Norbert Vollertsen said he saw parallels between the fiery train blast at Ryongchon and the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl that pressed an embarrassed Soviet Union to give up reflexive communist secrecy and deception.

"This is not only an accident with many, many casualties, this is the main opening for North Korea for foreign aid and the only way to get Chinese aid to North Korea," he said. He said Ryongchon was a major hub on the route from the North to China.

Mr Vollertsen, 46, worked in hospitals in North Korea with the German charity Cap Anamur. He visited Ryongchon during extensive travels during an 18-month stay in the North, which expelled him in Dec 2000 for criticizing the Pyongyang government.

North Korean hospitals - even those run by the powerful military - were in dire straits, he said in an interview.

"There's no power, there's no running water, there's no medicine - there's sometimes even no soap," he said.

Mr Vollertsen said doctors were doing grafts for burn victims "donating their own skin, without any anaesthetic, without any narcotics, without any disinfection - sometimes with a razor blade". -Reuters