US, SKorea consider sending aid for flood-hit NKorea

SEOUL (AFP) - The United States and South Korea said yesterday they were considering sending aid to North Korea after the impoverished country reported hundreds dead or missing in floods and tens of thousands of homes destroyed.

South Korean Deputy Unification Minister Seo Sung-Woo said this year's flooding in the North seemed to have caused "more serious" human losses and property damage than last year.

"There has been no request yet from North Korea but we are now consulting with other government bodies on sending aid," he said.

The United States said it was also considering providing aid.

"If there is a humanitarian need we would take a look to see if we could help out in some way," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, pointing out that any aid would be channeled through the United Nations.

The havoc wreaked by the floods "certainly caught our attention," he said, noting that North Korea had asked the UN's food relief agency, the World Food Programme, for help in the wake of the disaster.

Low-lying areas in the centre of the capital Pyongyang have been inundated and communications networks and subways badly damaged, Seo said, but added it would not affect an inter-Korean summit there on August 28-30.

Footage from state television showed flooded streets in Pyongyang, with soldiers and civilians seen struggling to repair broken bridges and roads.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said earlier that downpours since August 7 had caused "huge human and material damage."

As of August 12 they had left hundreds of people dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 houses for over 63,300 families, it said.

According to KCNA, at least 800 public buildings, more than 540 bridges and sections of railway have been destroyed, with tens of thousands of hectares of farmland "inundated, buried under silt and washed away."

The southern provinces of Kangwon and North Hwanghae which border South Korea, and South Hamgyong in the east, were among the worst hit with thousands of families left homeless after their houses were flooded, it added.

"The material damage so far is estimated to be very big. This unceasing heavy rain destroyed the nation's major railways, roads and bridges, suspended power supply and cut off the communications network."

KCNA reported late yesterday that more than 500 high voltage power towers had collaped because of the rainstorms, with five large substations inundated and more than 10 transformers damaged.

North Korea was pelted by between 30 and 67 centimetres (about one to two feet) of rain between August 7 and 12, it said.

Good Friends, a South Korean agency specialising in aid to the hardline communist state, said help was needed quickly.

"A swift relief operation is needed to help North Korea, which has been hit by severe floods," Good Friends' Erica Kang told AFP.