North Korea in urgent need of aid

NORTH Korea is in desperate need of medical aid to treat victims of its huge train blast, UN officials warned yesterday.

But despite aid workers describing appalling scenes of suffering, the secretive and impoverished communist state appeared to shut down one route to quick relief when North Korean officials told South Korea they did not want direct overland shipments of aid.

"North Korea rejected our proposed overland transportation of emergency relief goods," said Moon Won-Il, spokesman for South Korea's National Red Cross. The decision means that the aid would take two days to reach the disaster site by sea instead of four hours, officials said.