North Korea floods a 'major, complex disaster', Red Cross says

Updated

North Korea is experiencing a "major and complex disaster", according to the Red Cross, after floods killed scores of people and left more than 100,000 homeless and in need of urgent help.

The charity said rescue workers were struggling to reach stricken communities in the country's far north, where thousands have been left homeless and the risk of disease is looming.

"From what we saw, it is clear that this is a very major and complex disaster," head of the Pyongyang office of the International Federation of the Red Cross, Chris Staines, said after visiting the affected areas.

At least 133 people are known to have died after torrential rains triggered massive floods that tore through villages, devastating entire communities and washing away buildings.

Hundreds more are missing and 140,000 people are in urgent need of food and shelter.

"The floods came through with such force they destroyed everything in their path," Mr Staines said.

"People were salvaging whatever possessions they could from piles of debris that used to be their homes."

Some 24,000 houses have been totally destroyed and thousands more damaged, with the full extent of the disaster still emerging as rescue workers battle to reach areas that have been totally cut off, the Red Cross said.

Mr Staines said there was barely a building left unscathed in some villages they had visited on the outskirts of Hoeryong City, which lies on the Tumen River on North Korea's border with China.

"People displaced from the floods are now in a very difficult situation and there are real risks of secondary disasters, particularly relating to people's health," Mr Staines added.

At least 100,000 people in Hoeryong City do not have safe drinking water, with up to 600,000 people in the affected area facing disruptions to their water supply, the Red Cross said.

The disaster is set to worsen North Korea's already chronic food shortages, with about 40,000 hectares of farmland inundated just weeks before the local maize and rice crops were due to be harvested.

"Their loss is another disaster that will be felt in the coming weeks and months," the Red Cross warned.

The impoverished nation is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods, due partly to deforestation and poor infrastructure.

At least 169 people were killed by a massive rainstorm in the summer of 2012.

Major state resources are swallowed up by a missile and nuclear weapons programme Pyongyang says is essential to deter US aggression.

AFP

Topics: korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of

First posted </s> North Korea is experiencing a "major and complex disaster" the Red Cross has warned, after floods killed scores of people and left tens of thousands in need of urgent help.

Rescue workers are struggling to reach stricken communities in the country's far north, where thousands have been left homeless, and the risk of disease is looming.

"From what we saw, it is clear that this is a very major and complex disaster," said Chris Staines, who heads a Red Cross delegation in North Korea and has visited the affected areas.

At least 133 people are known to have died after torrential rains triggered massive floods that tore through villages, devastating entire communities and washing away buildings.

Hundreds more are missing and 140,000 people are in urgent need of food and shelter.

"The floods came through with such force, they destroyed everything in their path," Staines said.

"People were salvaging whatever possessions they could from piles of debris that used to be their homes."

Some 24,000 houses have been totally destroyed and thousands more damaged, with the full extent of the disaster still emerging as rescue workers battle to reach areas that have been totally cut off, the Red Cross said.

"There was barely a building left unscathed," in some villages they visited on the outskirts of Hoeryong City, Staines said.

"People displaced from the floods are now in a very difficult situation and there are real risks of secondary disasters, particularly relating to people's health," Staines added.

At least 100,000 people in Hoeryong City do not have safe drinking water, with up to 600,000 people in the affected area facing disruptions to their water supply, the Red Cross said.

The disaster is set to worsen North Korea's already chronic food shortages, with around 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of farmland inundated just weeks before the local maize and rice crops were due to be harvested.

"Their loss is another disaster that will be felt in the coming weeks and months," the Red Cross warned.

The impoverished nation is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods, due partly to deforestation and poor infrastructure. </s> PYONGYANG: Severe flooding in North Korea has killed at least 76 people with another 75 missing, many of them children, the Red Cross said Thursday. Thousands of people have been left homeless after heavy rains triggered floods and landslides, toppling more than 800 buildings including houses, clinics and schools in North and South Hwanghae provinces, leaving Red Cross volunteers scrambling to find survivors. “Thousands have lost their homes and are in urgent need of health services, shelter, food, safe drinking water and sanitation,” said John Fleming of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies North Korea country office. </s> Severe flooding in North Korea has killed at least 76 people with another 75 missing, many of them children, the Red Cross said Thursday.

Thousands of people have been left homeless after heavy rains triggered floods and landslides, toppling more than 800 buildings including houses, clinics and schools in North and South Hwanghae provinces, leaving Red Cross volunteers scrambling to find survivors.

“Thousands have lost their homes and are in urgent need of health services, shelter, food, safe drinking water and sanitation,” said John Fleming of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies North Korea country office.

“With the cold season around the corner, we are also concerned this disaster will increase the risk of health problems and food insecurity for some communities.”

Impoverished North Korea is vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 130 people died after floods struck North Hamgyong province in 2016, bringing down buildings and leaving hundreds of thousands in urgent need of food and shelter.

The country’s territory is largely composed of mountains and hills that have long been stripped bare for fuel or turned into terraced rice fields, allowing rainwater to flow downhill unchecked.

A series of floods and droughts was partially responsible for a famine that killed hundreds of thousands between 1994-98, with economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support exacerbating the situation. </s> Severe flooding in two provinces of North Korea has killed 76 people in recent days, the International Federation of of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Thursday. Around 75 people are missing, including many children, the non-profit organisation said.

Recent heavy rains have caused major floods and landslides in low-lying areas of North and South Hwanghae provinces, destroying more than 800 buildings including homes, clinics and schools, the organisation said. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Red Cross Society has provided blankets, hygiene kits, first aid and transport to nearby hospitals. It has also installed mobile water treatment plants.

“Thousands have lost their homes and are in urgent need of health services, shelter, food, safe drinking water and sanitation,” John Fleming, from the North Korea office of the International Federation of of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said. “With the cold season around the corner, we are also concerned this disaster will increase the risk of health problems and food insecurity for some communities.” </s> GENEVA (Reuters) - Severe flooding in North Korea has killed at least 76 people with nearly the same number missing and thousands left homeless by the destruction, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Thursday.

Volunteers from the national Red Cross are conducting search and rescue operations in North and South Hwanghae provinces, where heavy rains began on August 28, it said, adding that many children were among the 75 missing.

“Heavy rains in recent days triggered large-scale flooding and landslides in low-lying areas, destroying more than 800 buildings including homes, clinics and schools,” the Geneva-based Federation said in a statement.

The Red Cross Society of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the country’s official name, was providing aid and deploying mobile water treatment plants, it said.

“Thousands have lost their homes and are in urgent need of health services, shelter, food, safe drinking water and sanitation,” said John Fleming of the Federation’s country office.

A month ago, the agency warned that a heat wave in North Korea had led to rice, maize and other crops withering in the fields, “with potentially catastrophic effects”, putting the country at risk of a “full-blown food security crisis”.

The drought-affected areas were South Hamgyong and South Pyongan provinces.

Drought and floods have long been a seasonal threat in North Korea, which lacks irrigation systems and other infrastructure to ward off natural disasters.

“Extreme weather events are occuring much more often,” Federation spokeswoman Laura Ngo-Fontaine said on Thursday. </s> TOKYO — Floods that devastated North Korea last month are turning out to be worse than initially feared, with more than 100,000 people left homeless, according to aid workers who visited the area last week.

That puts Pyongyang in the inconvenient position of having to turn to the international community for help — at the same time North Korea is facing global condemnation after its nuclear test last week.

“The effects of this flooding will be even more dramatic and devastating than initially thought,” said Chris Staines, the head of the Pyongyang office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “The people there are in a very desperate situation.”

Staines was part of a group of 22 international and local staffers from 13 aid agencies stationed in Pyongyang who last week visited the northern city of Hoeryong, across the Tumen River from China.

Floods ripped through the area Aug. 30 as Typhoon Lionrock lashed northeast Asia. North Korean authorities at first estimated that 44,000 people had been displaced between Onsong, in the north, and Musan, a major mining center 100 miles downriver.

The North Korean government has confirmed that 133 people have been killed and 395 are missing as a result of the floods, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Sunday.

At least 140,000 people are in urgent need of assistance, the OCHA said in a statement, including an estimated 100,000 people who have been displaced. Water supplies to about 600,000 people have been cut.

“My impression was that this was a much worse disaster than the statistics indicate,” Staines said by Skype from Pyongyang. “The damage is very extensive, and there is clear evidence that the floodwaters were not only very high — you can see the watermarks above the window frames — but also moving very rapidly in some places.”

Authorities took the aid workers, some of whom represented U.N. agencies, to destroyed medical clinics and to a water pumping station near Hoeryong that was wiped out, leaving 50,000 people without water. Kitchen gardens and household livestock — chickens, ducks, pigs — also were washed away, Staines said.

“These households have clearly lost everything,” he said.

In some areas, communication links remain cut and the roads are still impassable.

North Korean authorities initially asked aid agencies to help with relief efforts using their existing budgets and supplies. But now officials plan to launch international appeals for donations.

Their timing could hardly be worse. On Friday, Kim Jong Un ordered North Korea’s fifth nuclear test and its largest yet, triggering international calls for more sanctions to punish the regime.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry warned Monday that Pyongyang could order another nuclear test at any time. The South’s Yonhap News Agency reported, citing unnamed government sources, that the North has completed preparations for a sixth test.

With so many other crises around the world competing for donations, agencies operating in North Korea — which include the United Nations’ World Food Program and UNICEF, as well as a handful of European organizations — have confronted difficulty raising money for their projects for several years and have had to scale back operations.

North Korea said the flooding was caused by the “strongest storm and heaviest downpour” since World War II. The government redirected people involved in a “200-day campaign” intended to increase production to instead help with the relief efforts.

Soldiers were sent to the disaster area Saturday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. Workers on Ryomyong Street, an ambitious development in Pyongyang that is trumpeted in the state media on an almost daily basis, also were dispatched.

Tens of thousands of houses and public buildings collapsed, while railways and roads, along with factories and crops, were destroyed or submerged, KCNA reported.

North Korea is particularly prone to flooding because of deforestation — a result of people cutting down trees to fuel fires in their homes — and a tendency to turn every inch of arable land over to crops. Making matters worse, houses, particularly in the downtrodden northern areas, are often made of substandard, locally produced bricks.

Staines asked donor nations to remember that the flood has hurt regular people in North Korea.

“In the communities we visited, we were allowed to meet with local people, and we could see their spirit and their energy and their support for each other,” he said. “These are people who are doing the best they can. They’re just normal, everyday people.” </s> At least 76 people are dead and thousands more have been left homeless by flooding in North Korea following heavy rains that began last week, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced on Thursday.“Thousands have lost their homes and are in urgent need of …Read more via Newsweek – https://ift.tt/2wRrLkG Get more World News </s> SEOUL (AFP) - The death toll from severe flooding in the north-east of North Korea has risen to 133, with another 395 missing and tens of thousands left homeless, the United Nations said.

Some 107,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the area along the Tumen River, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement received on Monday (Sept 12), citing Pyongyang government figures.

People in the north-eastern region near the border with China and Russia are suffering "great hardship", according to North Korean state media.

A nationwide mass-mobilisation 200-day labour campaign intended to bolster the economy has been redirected to assist the flood victims.

More than 35,500 houses have been hit by floods, with 69 percent of them completely destroyed, and 8,700 public buildings have been damaged, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement dated Sunday.

Around 16,000ha of farmland have been inundated and at least 140,000 people urgently need help, it said.

OCHA said a group made up of UN agencies, international non-governmental organisations, the international Red Cross and the North's Red Cross had visited parts of the flood-stricken region last week to assess needs.

It said aid agencies have released material from stockpiles in the North such as food, shelter and kitchen kits and water purification and health supplies.

The North's government was working urgently to reopen roads and was distributing relief goods and building materials. The priority was to rebuild 20,000 homes by early October before the bitter Korean winter sets in.

The North has trumpeted the role of its ruling Workers' Party in responding to the disaster in North Hamgyong province.

The aim is "to turn the area into the fairyland in the era of the Workers' Party within this year by dint of army-people great unity, harmonious whole", said party newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Monday.

"The party regards the work for taking care of the people's life in a responsible way as the most important affair and duty and has steadily created legendary stories about love for the people," it added.

Impoverished North Korea is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods. At least 169 people were killed by a massive rainstorm in the summer of 2012.

Its territory is largely composed of mountains and hills that have long been stripped bare for fuel or turned into terraced rice fields. This allows rainwater to flow downhill unchecked.

A series of floods and droughts was partially responsible for a famine that killed hundreds of thousands between 1994 and 1998, with economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support exacerbating the situation.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said in April that North Korea's chronic food shortages were expected to worsen, given the tight food supplies last year and this year when "most households were already estimated to have poor or borderline food consumption levels".

The United Nations Security Council is planning fresh sanctions on the nation after it staged its fifth nuclear weapons test on Friday.
The Red Cross warns that North Korea faces a "major, complex disaster" after recent floods kill scores of people and leave more than 100,000 homeless.