22 April 2004 06:19
3,000 DEAD OR INJURED IN NKOREA BLAST: REPORTS
SEOUL, April 22 (ONASA - AFP) - Some 3,000 people were dead or injured after two trains carrying fuel collided and
exploded Thursday at a North Korean railway station near the Chinese border, reports said. The blast was so powerful it
destroyed the railway station at Ryongchon just nine hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il passed through it on
his return from a trip to China. North Korea declared a state of emergency around the site of the blast which resembled
a war zone, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Chinese sources as saying. At least 3,000 people were dead or
injured, according to Seoul's YTN news channel. Yonhap, also citing Chinese sources, said the number of casualties
could reach into the thousands. South Korean media said the explosion occurred when two cargo trains carrying fuel
collided at Ryongchon, 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the North Korean border with China. South Korean officials
confirmed that a blast had occurred. "It is true there was a large explosion in North Korea today," an
official told AFP, requesting anonymity. "We are still trying to confirm other details." A defense ministry
official told Yonhap they had yet to confirm "the cause of the incident, the kind of explosion and how many
died". The entire area "was turned into ruins comparable to the aftermath of a massive bombing," Yonhap
said, quoting witnesses. North Korean authorities were investigating the cause of the accident, Yonhap said. But North
Korea's official media was silent on the blast and the government immediately cut off international phone services
to the devastated area in an effort to impose a news blackout, Yonhap said. Many of the injured were taken to hospitals
across the border in the Chinese city of Dandong, Seoul's MBC television said. Other reports said China had sealed
off the border with North Korea at Dandong, on the rail line that leads to Ryongchon, a strategic coastal area. Chinese
traders and visitors are normally relatively free to enter and leave North Korea at the border post, passing into the
North Korean town of Sinuiju. One report said the gas that one of the trains was carrying was a donation from China to
energy-starved North Korea, locked in an 18-month standoff with the United States over its nuclear weapons drive. Only
hours before the blast, North Korean supreme leader Kim passed through the area on his special train returning to
Pyongyang from a three-day visit to Beijing. Media reports here said there were no grounds to suspect foul play or an
attempt on the leader's life. China said that during his stay in the country, Beijing had agreed to supply aid to
the Stalinist state whose economy is close to collapse following years of natural disasters and poor economic
management. Citing security reasons, Kim prefers to travel by train when traveling abroad to China, and also in a 2001
visit to Moscow.
[ONASA News Agency] |
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