Sang - Hun Choe
Korean Train Explosions
Thu Apr 22, 2004 13:45
4.226.99.116

Thursday, April 22

[ http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGATAWN1DTD.html ]


South Says as Many as 3,000 Killed or Injured in North Korean Train Explosions

By Sang-Hun Choe
Published: Apr 22, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea declared a state of emergency after as many as 3,000 people were killed or injured Thursday when two fuel trains collided and exploded at a station near the Chinese border, South Korean media reported.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had passed through the station as he returned hours earlier from a three-day trip to China, South Korea's all-news cable channel, YTN, reported. During his secretive visit to China, Kim met with the country's leaders and discussed the standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.

The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, YTN said, citing unidentified sources on the Chinese side of the border.

"The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted witnesses as saying. "Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the border with China, the agency said.

The Yonhap report of the state-of-emergency declaration gave no details. It said officials of the secretive North Korean government had put in place a "type of state of emergency" around the town of Ryongchon near the Chinese border.

In a sign of the accident's magnitude, the government cut international phone lines to prevent news of the crash from leaking across its borders, Yonhap said, citing no sources.

Yonhap, quoting witnesses in the Chinese city of Dandong on the border with the North, said the explosion occurred about 1 p.m. at Ryongchon. It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to Pyongyang. Ryongchon is about 12 miles from the Chinese border.

Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said her organization could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea.

The Defense Ministry likewise was not commenting.

"We are aware of the news reports, but we will not make any comments at this stage," said a spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

YTN reported that the causalities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong were desperate to learn about their relatives.

Some of the injured were evacuated to hospitals in Dandong, it said.

Chinese and North Korean traders frequently cross the border at Dandong, a bustling industrial city on Yalu River.

North Korea's state-run news agency on Thursday confirmed that Kim had made a secretive trip to China on Monday through Wednesday, but carried no comments on the reported explosion.

China, which also confirmed Kim's visit, is North Korea's last major ally, and the two countries' ruling communist parties boast of close ties. But while China's experiments with capitalism have transformed it into an economic dynamo, North Korea suffers chronic food shortages and depends on its larger neighbor for aid.

Kim met with President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders and agreed to "push ahead" with a peaceful resolution to the standoff over its nuclear weapons programs, the North's official KCNA news agency and central television network reported earlier Thursday.

The broadcast added that Kim said his government "will continue to be patient and flexible and actively participate in the process of six-nation talks and contribute to making progress at the talks."

The comments were likely to be encouraging to the United States and other countries, who want China to use its leverage as North Korea's leading supplier of food and energy aid to get the country to disarm.

Washington wants Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear facilities, but North Korea has said it doesn't trust the United States not to invade and wants a security guarantee.

The last round of six-nation talks - involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia - ended in February in Beijing without a settlement.

The train accident resembled a disaster in Iran on Feb. 18, when runaway train cars carrying fuel and industrial chemicals derailed in the town Neyshabur, setting off explosions that destroyed five villages. At least 200 people were killed. ......Meanwhile in a dungeon in Canada

[ http://www.zundelsite.org/zundel_persecuted/march08-04_zgram.html] [ http://www.zundelsite.org/201.html ]

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