North Korea silent over fuel trains disaster

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.

The trains collided and exploded at a station near the Chinese border yesterday.

In the first official word of casualties, the Chinese embassy in North Korea said two Chinese people were killed and 12 others injured in the disaster, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Among the 12 injured Chinese, two sustained serious injuries and the remaining 10 were slightly wounded, Xinhua reported out from the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

The embassy added that 20 houses had been knocked down.

It was not immediately clear what caused the disaster, but local media reports quoted South Korean officials as saying it appeared to be an accident and not linked to a reported trip through the station hours earlier by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as he returned from China.

Secretive North Korea’s media had still not reported on the disaster, nearly a day later.

South Korea’s defence ministry confirmed that there was an explosion at Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from China, but could not provide further details on what exploded or how many died.

“All we know is that there was a large explosion,” a ministry spokesman said.

South Korea’s acting president Goh Kun ordered his government to prepare assistance if necessary. The explosion devastated a densely-populated neighbourhood around the station and spurred North Korean authorities to declare a state of emergency in the area, South Korea reported.

Many of the injured were evacuated to hospitals across the Chinese border, cable channel YTN said.

“If the report is true, this is a very tragic accident and we relay deep condolences,” Goh said at a meeting with his senior staff.

The trains were carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency and other media reported. At the time of the crash, an international passenger train carrying many ethnic Chinese was parked in the station, South Korea’s mass circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, without citing sources.

The crash reportedly took place about 1pm local time.

“The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded,” Yonhap quoted witnesses. “Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuiju (a North Korean town on the border with China),” it said.

Many of the South Korean reports cite Chinese sources in the border region who had telephoned relatives or contacts in Ryongchon.

In a sign of the blast’s magnitude, the North Korean government cut international phone lines to prevent news of the collision from leaking across its borders, Yonhap said, citing no sources. A Yonhap correspondent in China also said North Korea appeared to be shutting down border traffic.

A five-story building near the station was levelled, a Chinese source in Dandong told South Korea’s Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper after telephoning a relative in Ryongchon.

The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, according to reports by Yonhap and YTN. They cited unnamed South Korean government sources.

The JoongAng Ilbo, citing unidentified South Korean government officials and unnamed sources in the Chinese border town of Dandong, said there were up to 3,000 casualties. Ryongchon has a reported population of 130,000 and is known for its chemical and metalwork plants.

North Korea is one of the world’s most isolated countries and rarely allows visits by outside journalists. News events within its borders are difficult to confirm independently.

The trunk line where the crash occurred, the main rail link between China and North Korea, was first laid during the Japanese occupation more than 60 years ago.