Aid urgently needed in N Korea

By Penny Spiller
BBC News

Pyongyang has been badly hit by flooding

North Korean officials have made a rare appeal for international help, following floods that are reported to have killed hundreds of people and destroyed large swathes of farmland.

They have allowed aid agencies such as the Red Cross and World Food Programme (WFP) to send teams into the affected areas to assess the damage.

Aid workers are bracing themselves for more devastation than the floods of a year ago, which caused more than 500 deaths, left 60,000 people homeless and destroyed tens of thousands of acres of much-needed farmland.

The impoverished, secretive country has been hit by heavy rainstorms for about a week, which are not expected to ease for another few days yet.

Ewa Erikkson, from the International Federation of the Red Cross, who has just returned to Beijing from Pyongyang, says the damage is clear to see, even in the capital.

"Rivers have overflowed and roads have been cut off by flood waters. It's difficult there," she told BBC News.

North Korea's official news agency, KCNA, reported that the flooding in recent days had destroyed 30,000 homes, affecting more than 60,000 families in the south-central counties of Kangwon, North Hwanghae and South Hamgyong.

Many people have been evacuated to temporary shelters in public buildings, or been given refuge by family and friends.

Ms Erikkson said some 6,000 Red Cross volunteers were currently helping to distribute emergency kits to 20,000 families made homeless in the worst-hit province, Kangwon.

The kits include tarpaulins, water containers, kitchen sets, blankets and water purification tablets.

Red Cross teams are still assessing what is needed in the other affected areas, Ms Erikkson explained.

"We are working very closely with the government in Pyongyang, to supplement what they are doing," she said.

But the aid effort has not been helped by extensive damage to the country's already dilapidated infrastructure.

KCNA said nearly 600 bridges had been damaged and parts of roads and railways washed away. Communication and power lines are down.

Food shortages

Of concern, to the WFP in particular, is the news that tens of thousands of hectares of farmland have also been destroyed.

North Korea already suffers from a chronic lack of food, and the main annual harvest of rice and maize - which is due next month - is vital to the country's stocks.

South Korea began resuming food aid shipments last month

The WFP's work - which is subject to severe restrictions by Pyongyang - had a welcome boost in recent weeks as international donations began to pick up following progress over moves to end the North's nuclear programme.

In particular, South Korea resumed its shipments of some 400,000 tons of food aid, which would make up much of its northern neighbour's food shortfall.

The WFP's Paul Risley said the organisation had been planning to expand its programme of feeding the most vulnerable, from 30 counties to 50 - but this could now change.

"It's likely that emergency rations will be needed in flood-hit areas almost immediately. The biscuits we routinely give children who are malnourished are also very useful for families in this situation," he said.

Until the assessment teams return from the flooded areas, it is impossible to know the extent of the problem, Mr Risley said, but he and his colleagues believe they are facing a bigger crisis than last year's floods.

And this could mean North Korea is forced to remain dependent on international food aid donations for much longer than it had hoped for, whether it likes it or not.