http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/2004/04/update_on_railw.htmlUpdate on railway explosion
South Korean media now reports as many as 3000 killed in the North Korean railway explotion at Ryongchong. Full AP report below. Yonhap has an updated report also.
Thanks to Nurri Kim for pointing out that the Korean version of the Yonhap story - and Korean media generally - contains some more detail and a lot more speculation, including:
- The N.Korean government cut national phone service to prevent news of this getting out.
- It's speculated that the trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas may have been gifts from China.
- Even wilder is the speculation that Kim Jong-Il had passed through the area not terribly long before the explosion, and there is a outside chance that this was intended to decapitate the NK leadership.
The above points are being made in the South Korean media. NKzone in no way endorses their accuracy.
Marmot, a translator at the Chosun Ilbo in Seoul, is on top of the story and monitoring the South Korean news reports. He will be posting updates as he gets them.
Report: Trains Explode in North Korea
8 minutes ago
By SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea - As many as 3,000 people were killed or injured Thursday when two trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas collided and exploded in a North Korean train station near the Chinese border, South Korean media reported.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had passed through the station as he returned from China hours earlier, South Korea (news - web sites)'s all-news cable channel, YTN, reported.
The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, YTN said, citing unidentified sources on the Chinese side of the border.
"The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted witnesses as saying. "Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the border with China, the agency said.
Yonhap, quoting witnesses in the Chinese city of Dandong on the border with the North, said the explosion occurred about 1 p.m. at Ryongchon. It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to Pyongyang. Ryongchon is about 12 miles from the Chinese border.
Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said her organization could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea (news - web sites).
The Defense Ministry likewise was not commenting.
"We are aware of the news reports, but we will not make any comments at this stage," said a spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
YTN reported that the causalities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong were desperate to learn about their relatives.
Some of the injured were evacuated to hospitals in Dandong, it said.
Chinese and North Korean traders frequently cross the border at Dandong, a bustling industrial city on Yalu River.
North Korea's state-run news agency on Thursday confirmed that Kim had made a secretive trip to China on Monday through Wednesday, but carried no comments on the reported explosion.
The accident resembled a disaster in Iran on Feb. 18, when runaway train cars carrying fuel and industrial chemicals derailed in the town Neyshabur, setting off explosions that destroyed five villages. At least 200 people were killed.