South Korea and China today led international promises for aid for North Korea to help cope with its disastrous train explosion.

A catastrophic train accident in North Korea was caused by a collision of fuel-laden trains and there may be “a large number of people killed or injured”, South Korea’s Unification Minister said today.

North Korea was maintaining its cloak of silence today over the crash between two North Korean fuel trains that is believed to have killed or injured as many as 3,000 people.

NEARLY a million chickens and ducks will be slaughtered across South Korea to combat a highly contagious strain of bird flu that has spread across the country and could also infect humans, the government said yesterday.

South Korea’s new prime minister said today his country would work with the United States to seek a peaceful resolution to the standoff with North Korea, amid a report that the North has restarted a nuclear reactor.