South Korea to send aid to flood-hit North report

SEOUL, Aug 16 (Reuters) South Korea will send emergency aid to its poorer northern neighbour after floods left hundreds of North Koreans dead or missing, damaged thousands of buildings and displaced more than 300,000 people, a report said today.

North Korea, which has suffered chronic food shortages for years, said floods have ravaged crops in its agricultural bread basket and left more than 11 percent of its paddy and maize fields submerged, buried or swept away.

An expert on the North's agricultural economy said the state will be hit hard by the losses but he does not think it will slide back into famine.

South Korea is planning to send emergency items such as blankets, flour, instant noodles and medicine in an aid package that will be announced on Friday, the South's Yonhap news agency quoted a government official as saying.

The Unification Ministry would not confirm the report. It has said Seoul is considering aid but has yet to receive a request from the North Korean government.

Last year, North Korea produced 4.8 million tonnes of grain, and the rice crop accounted for half the total, according to the Korea Institute for National Unification.

International experts said even with a good harvest, North Korea still falls 1 million tonnes short of the food needed to feed its 23 million people. A famine in the mid to late 1990s is estimated to have killed as much as 10 per cent of the population.

''A loss of 480,000 tonnes would be big,'' said Choi Soo-young, research fellow at Korea Institute for National Unification. ''North Korea will need massive aid from the South and world organisations.

''But the flooding would not push North Korea back into famine again as the North's grain output has steadily grown from 2.5 million tonnes (about a decade ago),'' he said.

North Korea's economy shrank by 1.1 percent in 2006 ending seven years of growth, dragged down by heavy flooding that washed away crops last year and by international sanctions over a nuclear test in October, the South Korean central bank said.

PYONGYANG FLOODED North Korea's official media has offered detailed accounts of the damage caused by the floods that have hit the southern half of the country. It said flood waters have destroyed hundreds of bridges, washed away railroads and left more than 300,000 homeless.

''The continued heavy rainfalls across the country have done a huge damage to people's living and the national economy,'' its KCNA news agency said on Thursday.

Some streets in the capital were submerged in two metres (yards) of water, famous Pyongyang river parks were washed away and numerous people were killed in the city, KCNA said.

South Korea's government has said a summit of the leaders of the two Koreas scheduled for Aug. 28-30 in Pyongyang would go ahead as planned.

The secretive North has broadcast video of the flooding on its official TV station, showing residents walking through waist-deep water in Pyongyang and troops being called out to repair the damage.

The Red Cross said it has distributed several hundred emergency kits. The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which is one of the main international agencies in North Korea feeding its poor, has submitted an emergency aid proposal to the North and is awaiting a reply, a spokesman said.

Park Young-ho, an expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Pyongyang had signalled its willingness to receive international assistance.

''I guess the high political leadership has reached the conclusion that without getting help from the international world, it will be really difficult for them to recover from the damage caused by this flooding,'' Park said.

REUTERS SV VV1617