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.

Seoul-Pyongyang Private Phone Links Possible

This picture taken 14 April 2007 shows dancers performing for the Arirang festival at the May Day studium in Pyongyang, to celebrate the 95th birth anniversary of late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. North Korea Thursday claimed a world record for its annual Arirang mass performance -- and said Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il deserves the credit.(AFP/File)


Seoul-Pyongyang Private Phone Links Possible

AUGUST 17, 2007 03:02

The South Korean government, as part of an IT cooperation plan that will be discussed at the second inter-Korean summit meeting, will try to establish direct, private telephone links between Seoul and Pyongyang.
There are telephones for direct communications for talks between the two governments and for military purposes, but the private sector has had to use services provided by a Japanese firm via communications satellite.
A government insider said yesterday, “The number of Korean tourists visiting Pyongyang is increasing every year, and economic cooperation between the two is booming. That’s why we are considering the idea of connecting Seoul and Pyongyang by phone in order to boost the level of communications convenience.”
The government discussed this matter in a meeting earlier this month with the Ministry of Unification, National Intelligence Service, Ministry of Information and Communication, KT (Korea Telecom), and other communications organizations.
At the meeting, according to an official, it was said, “There are optic cables installed between Munsan in the South and Gaesong in the North that were used for video-meetings between separated families in 2005, which means there are no technical barriers to direct phone service. Security issues, however, need to be resolved.”
According to KT, optic cables will be used between Munsan and Gaesong, and when a switchboard is installed in Seoul and Pyongyang, millions of people will be able to talk on the phone simultaneously.
Copyright 2002 donga.com.All rights reserved.

Almost 300 dead or missing in N Korea floods

North Korean passersby make their way through a flooded street in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007 , in this image made from television. Severe floods caused by days of heavy rains in North Korea have left at least 200 people dead or missing and will hamper the country's ability to feed itself for at least a year, an international aid group operating in the country said Tuesday. (AP Photo/APTN)


Almost 300 dead or missing in N Korea floods



Almost 300 people are dead or missing in floods in North Korea, an aid agency said, as the communist state painted a grim picture of inundated crops and homes, flooded mines and washed-out roads.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said 214 were killed and 80 are missing in what it has called the worst floods to hit the impoverished country in a decade.
The acting head of the IFRC delegation in Pyongyang, Terje Lysholm, told AFP by phone that the figures - the first detailed casualty count - came from the government.
Official data says some 300,000 people are homeless and 11 per cent of the grain harvest - equivalent to some 450,000 tons - was lost in a country which already needs foreign aid to feed its people.
In the latest unusually detailed report from the reclusive state, an official broadcasting station said main roads, including one linking the capital Pyongyang to the eastern city of Wonsan, were badly damaged.
"Korean People's Army soldiers are also out in force to stage hectic struggles to restore roads," it said, as quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency.
Some 46,580 homes of 88,400 families were destroyed or damaged, 400 commercial plants and 20 mines were flooded and landslides cut railways in 43 places, official media said.
It said the showpiece capital was hit from August 7-11 by record rainfall which swelled the Taedong River to danger levels and left some streets under two metres of water.
Traffic, electricity and communications networks were disrupted, parks were buried under silt and the homes of 6,400 families in the city were inundated, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
The IFRC has said at least 100,000 hectares of farmland were inundated nationwide but it reported improved weather on Thursday (local time).
"There is no rain today and the Taedong River level has decreased a lot," Mr Lysholm said.
Food shortfall
North Korea faced a food shortfall this year of one million tonnes, or 20 per cent of its needs, even before the floods hit. It suffered a famine in the mid- to late 1990s which killed hundreds of thousands.
The World Food Program (WFP) said it has proposed an emergency program to feed 500,000 people for a month and is awaiting Pyongyang's response.
If the North approves this, the WFP will immediately launch an international appeal for funds to avoid having to cut back on its existing program, its regional spokesman Paul Risley said.
The UN agency currently feeds 750,000 people, mainly children and pregnant or nursing women, and plans to expand this to 1.9 million by next month.
Mr Risley told AFP the speed with which Pyongyang publicised damage could indicate the severity of the situation.
"Political developments may also have increased the government's willingness to work more closely with international organisations," he said, citing the North's commitment to denuclearise and the upcoming inter-Korean summit.
But some analysts say the North may have exaggerated damage to secure aid.
"North Korea in recent years has tended to exaggerate losses from natural disasters to obtain as much outside aid as possible," Professor Nam Sung-Wook of Korea University told AFP.
Lee Young-Hoon, an expert on North Korea at the central bank, could not say if damage had been exaggerated but added that flooding was largely man-made.
"Since the North reached out to the outside for help following the disasters in the mid-1990s, it has been pretty open about any damage from natural disasters, apparently being conscious of outside aid," he said.
"Much of the blame for the damage should be put on the disastrous failure in policies, especially in agriculture.
"Because of the silt from deforested mountains and terraced rice paddies, riverbeds are rising every year."

- AFP

N. Korean Floods Evict Thousands

Reuters. Video footage showing flooding in the streets of North Korea on Tuesday.


N. Korean Floods Evict Thousands
Reuters



SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korean authorities have indicated flooding may have left up to 300,000 people homeless, a United Nations aid agency spokesman said Wednesday, while the communist state warned of a poor harvest this year due to the heavy rain.
North Korea said hundreds were dead or missing after flooding over the past several days that washed away thousands of structures and ruined crop land in the country's agricultural region.
The country's official KCNA news agency quoted an agricultural ministry official Wednesday as saying the damage to farm crops was heavier than in previous floods, with more than 11 percent of paddy and maize fields submerged, buried or swept away.
"Unprecedented torrential rains have poured down in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for days in succession from August 7, throwing a shadow over the prospect of the agricultural production," the agency said.
Paul Risley, Asia spokesman for the UN World Food Program, said a UN assessment team has visited one area near Pyongyang, and added that North Korea was seeking international help.

DPR Korea: Floods OCHA Situation Report No. 1

Flooding in a Pyongyang neighborhood caused by heavy rains is pictured in this photo distributed by the Korea News Service on August 14, 2007. North Korean authorities have indicated flooding may have left up to 300,000 people homeless, a U.N. aid agency spokesman said on Wednesday, while the communist state warned of a poor harvest this year due to the heavy rain. REUTERS/Korea News Service (NORTH KOREA) JAPAN OUT


DPR Korea: Floods OCHA Situation Report No. 1


Floods
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
OCHA Situation Report No. 1
15 August 2007

This report on the floods in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is based on information from the OCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP), UN Agencies and the International Federation for the Red Cross (IFRC).

SITUATION

1. Heavy seasonal rains have caused severe floods throughout DPRK since 5 August. The floods have had the greatest impact on the southern Provinces, including the capital city Pyongyang and key agricultural production regions. Affected provinces include Kangwon, North Hwanghae, South Hwanghae, Sotuh Hamgyong and South Phyongan and low-lying areas in the centre of the capital city of Pyongyang.

2. According to initial reports from 12 – 15 August, the floods have left as many as 300,000 people homeless, according to DPRK authorities. The Korean Central News Agency reports 30,000 houses damaged and tens of thousands of hectares of farmland flooded. Over 800 public buildings, 540 bridges, 70 sections of railway and more than 500 high voltage power towers were destroyed. Five large-capacity electric power sub-stations and more than 10 transformers were inundated or severely damage.

3. DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on 12 August that In North Hwanghae Province, more than 3,400 houses have been destroyed; more than 9,100 houses were flooded; and more than 13,000 hectares of farmland was submerged under water. In South Hamgyong Province, the MFA reported that more than 8,000 houses have been destroyed and more than 9,000 hectares of farmland was flooded.

4. Weather forecasts indicate continued heavy rains until 17 August.

NATIONAL RESPONSE

1. Government authorities have mobilized civilian and military resources to assist people affected by the floods. The People’s Committees are providing temporary shelter, clothing and food.

2. The DPRK Red Cross Society (DPRK RCS) dispatched staff to conduct assessments, as well as assist with rescue, evacuation, first aid and distribution of relief items.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

1. The Government of DPRK invited UN Agencies (UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP, WHO and UN Resident Coordinator a.i.) based in Pyongyang to participate in a needs assessment in the North Hwanghae Province on 14 August. The assessment noted the extent of damage in this Province to be as follows: approximately 10 per cent of the population displaced, 70 per cent of the total arable land flood-affected and 50 per cent of health clinics destroyed. The assessment team identified immediate needs of food, shelter and medicines and noted that temporary health facilities were in the process of being established.

2. On 14 August, the Secretary-General met with DPRK Permanent Representative Pak Gil Yon and assured the latter that the UN will be prepared to help the DPRK government and people to combat the effects of the floods. The DPRK Ambassador notes his appreciation of the UN offer.

3. Following, OCHA’s ASG/DERC met with the DPRK Permanent Representative on afternoon of 14 August to receive a briefing of the humanitarian situation in the country and to offer OCHA, as well as the UN humanitarian system’s, assistance in working with the government to provide relief to the disaster-affected population. OCHA has personnel on standby for deployment to assist the UN Office of the Resident Coordinator a.i. in coordinating the UN system’s response to the humanitarian emergency.

4. WFP Asia spokesman, Paul Risley, stated on 14 August that “if the figures are borne out by our own assessment, then we are very concerned that this is a significant emergency crisis…” Moreover, he noted that the primary need will be for emergency food rations, shelter material and medicine.

5. UNICEF has pre-positioned supplies in Government warehouses, including 100 essential medicine kits (each kit contains medicines for a population of 4,000 for a period of three months); 500 UNICEF family water kits (containing jerry cans, water purifying, tablets and soap for 5,000 families for one month), and 20 school in a box kits. UNICEF is concerned about the situation of children and women and their specific vulnerability in the flood-affected areas.

6. Almost 6,000 Red Cross volunteers are engaged in evacuation and relief and IFRC has pre-positioned 23,000 household kits in 6 locations. IFRC Headquarters is considering an appeal to assist some 1.2 million beneficiaries.

7. Humanitarian partners currently responding to the disaster include Concern, German Agro Action and the ECHO.

8. On 16 August, the UN, NGOs and ECHO will hold a meeting in Pyongyang to amalgamate assessments and determine the way forward.

9. This situation report, together with further information on ongoing emergencies, is also available on the OCHA Internet Website at http://www.reliefweb.int.

MAP - DPR Korea: Floods - Location Map

If you're going to Pyongyang, take some cigs

CANCUN CHU/Getty Images

If you're going to Pyongyang, take some cigs
Blake Hounshell | BLOG.FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

FP contributor Andrei Lankov reports from the China-North Korea border, which is more porous than you might think. And like in many a U.S. prison, cigarettes are often the coin of the realm:

Corruption in North Korea is shocking even to Chinese visitors, who are not exactly used to a clean government.

A Korean-Chinese who occasionally goes to visit his relatives described his usual experience: "They are so greedy. Officials take bribes in China, too. But perhaps nowhere in the world are the officials so hungry for bribes as they are in North Korea. At customs, they slowly go through the luggage and sometimes put aside a few things they like, and then they say that those things are not allowed into North Korea. This is the hint, and I have no choice but to tell them to take those things, some clothing or small items. And it is a tradition that everybody who checks you should be given some foreign cigarettes. Last time I took five cartons of cigarettes with me, and only one carton reached my relatives. All others I had to give away to the officials."

Lankov's real point, though, is that information about China, which looks to North Koreans "like a perfect paradise," is seeping back across the border. And those North Koreans lucky enough to make it to the promised land—be it as refugees or businessmen known as chogyo—soon learn that South Korea isn't the hell on Earth they've been taught to hate, but is even richer than China. This can't be a sustainable situation.

North Korea Opens Up Over Flooding

A street in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, is flooded by heavy rain August 11, 2007. North Korea is seeking international help after it reported massive flooding had left hundreds of people dead or missing and washed away many buildings, a U.N. aid agency spokesman said on Tuesday. Picture taken August 11, 2007. JAPAN OUT REUTERS/Korea News Service (NORTH KOREA)



North Korea Opens Up Over Flooding
By Jennifer Veale / Seoul

Pyongyang, the world's most reclusive capital, prefers to keep the outside world in the dark about the country's misfortunes. It's part and parcel of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's ideology of juche, or self-reliance, that has helped keep the country isolated from the outside world for much of the past 50 years. But this rainy season, North Korea has thrown the international community a curveball, announcing it had been hit extremely hard by floods after a solid week of torrential rains, and that it desperately needed assistance from the outside world.
It isn't the first time North Korea has gone cap in hand to international aid groups for relief. In 2006, when torrential rains in July left hundreds if not thousands dead, Pyongyang officials appealed to Seoul for aid that was subsequently held up following the North's nuclear test in October.
But this week's request was different. For starters, Pyongyang has reacted quickly to the latest disaster, requesting help while the waters are still high — rather than keeping silent as long as possible, as it has done in the past. After last year's floods, for example, government ministries waited nearly a month before they sought help from the outside world. "It's remarkable," says Paul Risley, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, of the change in attitude.
Unlike in past floods, North Korea has not tried to veil the extent of the damage. Television footage from the North showed citizens in Pyongyang wadding in knee- and waist-deep waters along the capital's grand boulevards — an extraordinary concession of weakness to the outside world. Government officials invited foreign diplomats in Pyongyang to venture out to the countryside to view first-hand the devastation wrought by the relentless rains. "This is definitely rare," says Professor Ryoo Kihl Jae, at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. On Tuesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that hundreds were dead or missing, 30,000 homes had been destroyed and more than a tenth of the country's farmland inundated. The agency said at least 800 public buildings and 540 bridges were also destroyed.
So what's with Pyongyang's new upfront approach? Some analysts say that the country is starting to realize that secrecy may not always be the best option. "North Korea is learning the best way of winning support from the outside is to be candid and open," says Professor Moon Chung In, a Professor of comparative politics at Yonsei University. Pyongyang could be trying to be more straightforward, encouraged by the current thaw in relations with its neighbors and the international community. North Korea recently allowed United Nations inspectors to verify it had shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, and continues to take part in six-party talks aimed at the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, meanwhile, will be driving up to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for a three- day summit with Dear Leader Kim Jong Il at the end of this month.
It probably helps, too, that the North Koreans are likely in serious trouble. The hermit state's ability to feed its own people is limited at the best of times; even before the flooding, it carried a food deficit approaching a million tons of cereal. The destruction of vast swathes of farmland only worsens the situation, and has sparked fears of looming famine.
Finally, there's the cynical view: that Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is desperate for aid and savvy enough to understand that showing his cards — for now — is the best way to get it. It is still far too early to know how much international aid will flow into the stricken North. But donors will be apt to dig deeper if Kim Jong Il appears to be reading from the same page.

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