UN official says 300,000 homeless, 58,000 houses destroyed, 83 dead in North Korea floods

In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, North Koreans repair a damaged road in flood-stricken South Pyongan Province, southeast of Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday that downpours along some areas of the Taedong River were the 'largest ever in the history' of measurements taken by the country's weather agency. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Xia Yu)


UN official says 300,000 homeless, 58,000 houses destroyed, 83 dead in North Korea floods

The Associated Press
IHT
Thursday, August 16, 2007

UNITED NATIONS: Severe floods in North Korea have left 300,000 people homeless, killed 83 people and destroyed 58,000 houses and more than 90,000 hectares (222,390 acres) of farmland, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.
U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom, the deputy emergency relief coordinator, said about 60 people are missing in the storms which have also destroyed hundreds of bridges and a number of public buildings and affected pumping stations and power supplies.
The heavy rains and flooding have "very badly affected" four southern provinces where the country's agricultural production is based, she said.
This week, U.N. staff in Pyongyang visited the province of North Hwanghae, European relief organizations visited South Pyongan, and the International Federation of the Red Cross visited North and South Hwanghae, South Pyongan, Kangwon and South Hamgyong for preliminary assessments, the U.N. said.
U.N. World Food Program representatives will travel Friday to 10 hard-hit counties to assess immediate needs.
"There are approximately 300,000 people who are homeless," according to assessments by the U.N., the government and relief organizations, Wahlstrom told reporters on Thursday.
"About 58,000 houses (are) destroyed," she said. "We've seen over 90,000 hectares of farmland which is flooded and about 60 missing, 83 dead so far."
Wahlstrom said "about 10 percent of the population in the provinces in the south are affected."
In North Hwanghae, she said about 70 percent of arable land has been affected and 50 percent of the health clinics destroyed.
According to an overview by U.N. relief officials in the region, more than 800 public buildings, 540 bridges, 70 sections of railway and more than 500 high voltage towers were destroyed, and more than 30 reservoirs and 450 agricultural structures were damaged.
In addition, the heavy rains have ruptured river banks in more than 800 places and dikes in 10 places, the U.N. said.
Wahlstrom said the flooding is as severe as last year and 2004, and U.N. and government officials are trying to assess whether it is of the same magnitude as the mid-1990s.
In 1995, the North said floods had displaced 5.4 million people, but international aid agencies found 500,000 homeless.
The North is especially vulnerable to the annual heavy summer rains that soak the Korean peninsula because its people remove natural vegetation from vast hillsides to grow more food to make up shortfalls from the official rationing system, increasing the risk of erosion and floods.
As a result of crop losses in last year's floods, Wahlstrom said, the U.N. had already calculated there would be a one million metric ton deficit of food crops in North Korea, and with the destruction caused by the current flooding "it will get worse."
The U.N. team that visited North Hwanghae was able to give out some medical supplies and shelter materials, but the flood victims need more resources, she said.
Luckily, Wahlstrom said, the U.N. World Food Program had been preparing to expand its operation in North Korea because it had been given a donation of $20 million (€14.9 million).
"What U.N. has in country will immediately be put at the disposal of the relief operation," she said.
The U.N. and the North Koreans are now "defining what the needs will be," Wahlstrom said.
"The most obvious, the most urgently needed will be food, will be medical support, and probably emergency shelter for many of the people," she said.
Once North Korea's needs are known, Wahlstrom said the U.N. will tap into a fund to provide relief in emergencies.
U.N. officials will also meet representatives of potential donor countries on Friday for initial consultations on mobilizing additional financial support for North Korea, Wahlstrom said.