88 killed in severe flooding

Severe flooding across North Korea has killed 88 people and left tens of thousands homeless, threatening to make the poverty-stricken country’s already chronic food shortage still worse.

The floods, caused by torrential rains and a typhoon, caused “big human and material losses”, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said, stranding nearly 63,000 people.

Since the 1990s, North Korea’s farm sector has often been devastated by both floods and drought.