North Korean train disaster was ‘waiting to happen’

At least 54 people were killed and more than 1 200 injured in a huge explosion at a North Korean train station, Red Cross officials said on Friday, warning the death toll was expected to rise.

The blast on Thursday was triggered when two wagons, which were packed with dynamite and being shunted into a siding, hit live electricity wires at Ryongchon station near the western border with China, a United Nations official said.

All structures within a 500m radius of the explosion were levelled, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, citing witnesses. At the time of the blast, about 500 passengers and railway employees were at the station.

”There was no collision,” said Masood Hyder, UN humanitarian coordinator in Pyongyang, quoting North Korean officials. Earlier reports said a collision between two fuel-laden trains had caused the blast.

More than 8 000 houses or rooms were destroyed or badly damaged, and 12 public buildings were totally demolished, said Red Cross officials. They said 54 people were confirmed dead and 1 249 were injured, but that many victims were likely buried under rubble.

”We are taking it for granted that the 54 are bodies that have been recovered from the debris of the devastated area. That figure can almost certainly climb,” said Red Cross representative for East Asia John Sparrow.

Ash and debris were carried over the Chinese border 20km to the north, witnesses told South Korean media. They said the densely populated area around the station looked as if it had been bombed.

The secretive Stalinist government in Pyongyang has yet to formally admit to the disaster, and its first response to the explosion was to cut international telephone lines and attempt to enforce a news blackout.

But after nearly 24 hours of silence the authorities tacitly admitted the blast had taken place by accepting help from the Red Cross and UN agencies.

North Korea declared a state of emergency following the blast, which occurred hours after leader Kim Jong-Il passed through the station in his armoured private train on his return from China, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

Three hospitals in the Chinese border city of Dandong were placed on alert after the explosion and were expecting to be overrun with casualties, but the injured never arrived.

”We stayed up all night waiting for them but they never came,” said Sun Chengying, the nursing supervisor at the Number One hospital in Dandong.

A huge pall of smoke was seen billowing into the sky in a satellite photograph taken of the site 18 hours after the explosion and shown on the BBC website.

North Korea is on the point of economic collapse. Aid agencies say hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, have died from famine in recent years. Vital infrastructure is poorly maintained, and experts say the health-care system would be incapable of handling a major disaster.

”We assume North Korea needs emergency goods, medicines and daily necessities,” South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun said in Seoul.

South Korea was joined by the United States and Australia in offering humanitarian aid to North Korea with Goh Kun, South Korea’s acting President, expressing deep condolences to the North Korean people.

The Red Cross said it has a depot of supplies of tents, blankets and water-purification tablets just 5km from the blast site, which will likely be released for the victims.

And the World Food Programme in Geneva said it was sending its Pyongyang-based delegate to the scene to see what help the UN food agency could give.

South Korean officials said the blast appeared to be a tragic accident and there were no signs it was a terrorist attack. If the death and injured toll is confirmed, it would rank as one of the world’s worst train disasters.

The railway system accounts for about 90% of freight transportation in fuel-starved North Korea. With most trucks and other vehicles kept off the road, rail is the only way to move most essential goods.

A former senior worker on the North Korean railways, now living in South Korea, said this was an accident just ”waiting to happen” on the shambolic and decaying rail system.

Ryongchon has a reported population of about 120 000 and is known for its chemical and metalwork plants. — Sapa-AFP