Aid En Route To N. Korea

A U.N. mission and several aid agencies were traveling Saturday to the site of a devastating train explosion in North Korea that killed as many as several hundred people, answering a rare appeal for foreign help from the reclusive communist state.

U.S. defense officials said damage from the blast extended at least 200 yards from the explosion at a railway station in Ryongchon, a city with chemical and metalworking plants and a reported population of 130,000.

American intelligence analysts regarded Thursday's blast as an industrial accident involving two trains but it was unclear what ignited it, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The analysts thought it was probably a coincidence that the blast happened hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly passed through the station on his way home from a three-day visit to China.

North Korean officials told diplomats and aid groups that several hundred people were killed, more than 1,000 people were injured and thousands of homes destroyed or damaged in the blast.

They said many more could be trapped in collapsed buildings near the station. Red Cross workers were distributing tents and blankets to 4,000 families.

"In Pyongyang, we already hold out our hands to the world community," North Korea's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim Chang Guk told Associated Press Television News. He said North Korea was seeking "generous help from the world community."

He said he didn't have further details about the explosion.

"I don't know what really happened, but I think it is very serious because our government held out hand to the world community for help," he said in New York. "It means it is a great incident."

He said Ambassador Pak Gil Yon officially requested U.N. help Friday. A U.N. mission, accompanied by several aid agencies, was to arrive at the disaster site Saturday to assess humanitarian needs and offer immediate support, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya urged the international community to respond to the rare call for help from North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"This is unusual for DPRK. So I think that the international community should be forthcoming, be positive in responding to their request," he said in New York.

North Korea restricts the movement of foreigners, and groups that distribute aid to alleviate its food shortages are barred from some areas. Aid workers have been allowed to visit areas struck by drought or floods in recent years, but the government has never arranged such quick access to the scene of a disaster like the train explosion.

The European Union approved euro200,000 (US$240,000) in emergency medical aid and temporary shelters. South Korea and other governments also said they were ready to send medicine or other aid if the North asked for it.

U.S. officials said they were evaluating the situation to see if Pyongyang needs help.

But while the communist North appealed for aid and disclosed some details of the blast to the outside world, its state-controlled domestic media remained silent on the disaster.

The British Broadcasting Corp. showed on its Web site what it said was a satellite photo taken 18 hours after the explosion. The black-and-white photo showed huge clouds of black smoke billowing from the site.

Initial reports described a collision, but aid workers said North Korean officials on Friday blamed an electrical accident with a train carrying explosives.

"What they've said is that two carriages of a train carrying dynamite — they were trying to disconnect the carriages and link them up to another train," Anne O'Mahony, regional director for the Irish aid agency Concern, told Irish radio station RTE from Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.

"They got caught in the overhead electric wiring, the dynamite exploded, and that was the cause of the explosion," she said.

Accounts of the materials involved differed. John Sparrow, a Red Cross spokesman in Beijing, said the trains were carrying explosives similar to those used in mining. China's Xinhua News Agency reported that the blast was blamed on ammonium nitrate — a chemical used in explosives, rocket fuel and fertilizer — leaking from one train. South Korea's unification minister said the trains were carrying fuel.

The blast leveled the train station, a school and apartments within a 500-meter (yard) radius, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting Chinese witnesses. It said there were about 500 passengers and railway officials in the station at the time.

Initial death tolls varied. The Red Cross reported at least 54 people killed and 1,249 injured, but Sparrow said because of the scope of the destruction, "We are anticipating that the casualty figures will increase."

North Korean officials, however, told Britain's ambassador that "several hundred people were thought to have died and several thousand were injured," a British Foreign Office spokesman said. He said Ambassador David Slinn was told "many people could be trapped" in collapsed buildings.

But until diplomats and aid officials arrive in Ryongchon Saturday, "we won't know what really happened there," said Chris Wardle, an official for Concern, the Irish aid agency, told The Associated Press by phone from Pyongyang.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, citing a South Korean intelligence source, said a U.S. spy satellite photograph showed damage mostly in densely populated neighborhoods east of the station, which included buildings for the military and ruling Workers' Party.

The explosion destroyed 1,850 apartments or houses and damaged 6,350, said Sparrow, citing officials in the North.

"Hospitals are jam-packed with people injured," Chosun Ilbo quoted a Chinese witness as saying.

There was no sign in Dandong, a Chinese border city about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Ryongchon, of injured people being brought out of North Korea. But the city's three biggest hospitals were preparing for a possible surge of patients.

There has been no unusual movement of North Korean military forces detected since the explosion, although it is likely some would aid in disaster recovery efforts, the U.S. officials said.