'Flood-hit North Korea says foreign aid coming'

Seoul, Aug 5: North Korea told its citizens today that foreign aid was pouring in to help it cope with flooding, just days after the government rejected offers of help.

Pyongyang's state TV said Yangdok, north of Pyongyang, and other cities have received aid from different parts of the world, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.

North Korea's state television also reported authorities repaired railways damaged by flooding and landslides, resuming services along 45 routes, Yonhap said.

But the North earlier this week actually turned down offers of help from South Korea's Red Cross and the UN World Food Programme, with Pyongyang saying it could manage on its own.

Yesterday, however, a North Korean official was quoted by Yonhap as saying the country urgently needed food aid.

Three major storms hit North Korea in July, killing 150 people as well as displacing tens of thousands, international agencies have said.

The floods devastated the potato crop and will almost certainly lead to a drop in production of the key staple rice in the country that already battles chronic food shortages, an official from the UN World Food Programme has said.

''Aid goods, including cement and steel are coming from different regions, which are trying to help people in flood-hit regions,'' the report said.

The International Federation of the Red Cross said yesterday in a bulletin that it had distributed kits to nearly 5,000 families in North Korea that include blankets, plastic sheets and other items for basic household needs.

Some 17,000 families are homeless because of the floods, it said.

A South Korean civic group sent about 150,000 dollars worth of aid yesterday to North Korea that includes flour and instant noodles.

More than one million people died in North Korea in the 1990s by a famine brought about by years of poor harvests and a mismanaged agriculture sector. The WFP has said some studies indicate as many as 2.5 million people, or 10 per cent of the population, perished in the famine.

Experts said even in a good year, North Korea's harvest falls about one million tonnes short of its needs.

South Korea, a major supplier of aid to the North, suspended shipments of food aid after Pyongyang defied international warnings and test-fired missiles early last month.

Some South Korean officials have indicated Seoul would be willing to help if the flooding spurred a humanitarian crisis.

Reuters