UN food agency ready to help N Korean flood victims

SEOUL, July 21 (Reuters) The United Nations World Food Programme is willing to help the victims of widespread flooding in North Korea but wants to thoroughly assess the damage and monitor the aid it gives, a WFP official said today.

Two major storms over the past two weeks have drenched the impoverished North with some of its heaviest rains in years, severely damaging crops and raising the possibility of famine in a country that already battles chronic food shortages.

North Korea made its first official comment today on deaths from the storms, saying hundreds were killed or went missing.

''We are willing to provide assistance to the victims of the flooding,'' Anthony Banbury, director of the WFP's Regional Bureau for Asia, said by telephone from Bangkok.

WFP officials are on the ground in North Korea, but the North so far has granted them access only to one county that experienced damage, Banbury said.

As a condition for aid, the WFP wants to conduct a full assessment of damage to find out North Korea's needs and then monitor the aid to make sure it gets to the people who need it most, he said.

The WFP has been in North Korea for several years and has far more monitoring of its aid than countries such as South Korea. Aid workers say this monitoring is aimed at ensuring the aid goes to the needy and does not end up in the hands of North Korea's powerful military.

The flooding has destroyed tens of thousands of buildings, damaged roads and railways, the North's KCNA news agency said.

Banbury added the floods hurt the potato crop, which is used as a filler until the rice crop comes in, and will also likely hurt rice production.

ISOLATION AND AID North Korea is facing greater international isolation over missile tests this month and the prospect of less food aid from its major donor, South Korea.

Up to 2.5 million North Koreans, or about 10 per cent of its population, died in the 1990s due to famines caused by droughts, flooding and mismanagement of the agriculture sector, the WFP has quoted studies as saying.

Even in a good year, North Korea's harvest falls about 1 million tonnes short of its needs, experts have said.

At the end of 2005, North Korea said it no longer wanted handouts from international agencies, causing the WFP to suspend its operations there, which had aimed to provide food for 6.5 million people.

But in May, North Korea agreed to again accept aid from the WFP but on a smaller scale, for 1.9 million people.

The flooding in North Korea comes as its biggest benefactor, China, is apparently shipping less food to the North this year than it did last year, a WFP official said.

South Korea has rejected the North's latest request for 500,000 tonnes for rice for this year, unless Pyongyang returns to stalled talks on ending its nuclear weapons programmes.

North Korea has halted several projects with the South after Seoul pressed Pyongyang to explain why it defied international warnings and test-fired missiles on July 5.

It has also ordered the South Korean firm that does the most business in the North to pull out workers from a construction project in the state.

Analysts have said, despite political troubles, countries would likely donate food if there was a humanitarian crisis in North Korea.

REUTERS DKA VV1639