South Korea to send cement to flood-hit North

SEOUL, Aug 24 (Reuters) South Korea will send building materials and equipment worth 39.7 million dollar to North Korea to help rebuild houses and roads after floods ravaged the impoverished country this month, a minister said today.

North Korea and international aid agencies said the North was hit by some of its worst flooding in years that ravaged farm land, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and buildings and left extensive damage to roads and highways.

Hundreds of people have been reported dead or missing and more than 300,000 are homeless.

South Korea has been shipping emergency aid supplies comprising food, water, medicine and blankets worth 7.1 billion won to the North this week.

''It won't take long since the (building) materials can be acquired immediately, as long as we can arrange for transport,'' Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung told reporters. ''I believe it will be mid-September.'' The materials will include 100,000 tonnes of cement, 5,000 tonnes of steel, 20,000 tonnes of road pavement materials, trucks and machinery and 500 tonnes of fuel for the equipment, Lee said.

Transporting the supplies will cost up to 10 billion won additionally, he said.

Lee said North Korea was in a state of emergency, with the government and residents out in full force for recovery work.

A North Korean official said this week that the country was urgently trying to repair roads and rail lines and restore basic services by the end of September.

He told a pro-Pyongyang newspaper that the communist state did not have enough shelter for its homeless and many were being asked to stay in damaged buildings or strangers' houses.

North Korea's state media said 11 per cent of its farm land was submerged, buried or swept away as heavy rains saturated the lower half of the country.

The UN World Food Programme, which already has a programme on the ground to feed the country's most needy, said on Tuesday it would immediately begin the distribution of emergency food rations.

North Korea battles acute food shortages even in years with good harvests.

REUTERS SKB PM0851