N. Korea: Details On Deadly Blast

North Korea on Monday for the first time issued a detailed report on last week's massive train explosion, saying that "damages are considerably big."

North Korea's official KCNA news agency said the explosion last Thursday in Ryongchon left about 150 people dead and 1,300 people injured.

KCNA, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, said the number of missing people was being investigated.

North Korea briefly reported the incident on Saturday, but gave a detailed report for the first time on Monday.

KCNA also said about 8,100 houses or apartments were damaged, including 1,850 that were totally destroyed.

"The damages are considerably big," KCNA said.

North Korea's detailed report came as international aid efforts accelerated.

South Korea pledged over the weekend to provide the North with $1 million in relief goods. Red Cross trucks loaded with medical supplies, bottled water, blankets, clothes, and instant noodles were gathering at a cargo depot near Seoul.

Relief workers cautioned that more help would be needed.

"There is still a huge need for help," said Brendan McDonald, a U.N. aid coordinator in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. "The immediate needs for the homeless are under control. The main concern is for those in hospital."

Japan planned to send medical kits and Russia promised aid Monday. South Korea, Australia and China have also agreed to contribute money and supplies.

China sent 11 truckloads of tents, blankets, canned food and packages of instant noodles across its border into the North on Sunday.

The international Red Cross launched an emergency appeal Monday for $1.25 million to help the thousands of people who will need food and medical aid for months to come.

"Some families have lost all their belongings," said Niels Juel, a Red Cross official in Beijing. "Also, the water and sanitation system in that area would need to be restored," he added. "It's important for that to be started as soon as possible." The agency has already distributed 720,000 water purification tablets.

In Seoul, Acting President Goh Kun on Monday ordered relief supplies to be swiftly delivered to the affected area, but North Korea remained hesitant to open up a land route between the neighbors to facilitate delivery.

Officials from North and South Korea are to meet in the northern city of Kaesong on Tuesday to discuss relief operations. The talks are to focus on ways to restore buildings and facilities in the area and provide assistance to North Korean victims.

Days after the catastrophe, details of it were still only trickling out from the secretive North. Aid workers first arrived in Ryongchon on Saturday, and recounted seeing huge craters, twisted railroad tracks and scorched buildings. Nearly half of the dead were children in a school torn apart by the blast, and the disaster left thousands of residents homeless, the aid workers said.

But most of the 1,300 people that North Korean officials said were injured were evacuated to the nearby city of Sinuiju before the aid workers arrived in Ryongchon.

An aid worker who toured Sinuiju on Sunday said that injured children lay on filing cabinets at an overcrowded hospital struggling to cope without enough beds or medicine.

"They clearly lack the ability to care for all the patients," Tony Banbury, Asia regional director for the U.N. World Food Program, said.

He said the most serious injuries were suffered by schoolchildren who were struck by a wave of glass, rubble and heat. Many had serious eye injuries, he said.

U.N. officials estimated 40 percent of Ryongchon was damaged.

North Korea's Communist government has blamed the disaster on human error, saying the cargo of oil and chemicals ignited when workers knocked the train cars against power lines.

The United States said Friday that is had not yet received a request for aid.

Despite considering North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, suspecting it of developing nuclear weapons and selling arms and deploring its human rights record, Washington is a major food aid donor to the impoverished country.

"I think I would just point out we have provided assistance in the past for humanitarian needs in North Korea, and there's no particular obstacle to that," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "We'd have to look at what was needed and whether we could provide it."