Many dead in Korean rail crash
A state of emergency was declared in North Korea after two trains carrying highly inflammable freight collided and exploded, killing or injuring up to 3,000 people.
The trains, carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas, crashed in a station near the Chinese border, South Korean media reported.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had passed through the station as he returned to his secretive Marxist state from China hours earlier.
The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, South Korea’s all-news cable channel, YTN, reported, citing unidentified sources on the Chinese side of the border.
“The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded,” witnesses told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
“Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju,” a North Korean town on the border with China, it said.
Yonhap said the explosion occurred at Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from the Chinese border and a “sort of state of emergency” had been declared in the region.
It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to his capital, Pyongyang.
Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said her organisation could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea.
The Defence Ministry was not commenting.
“We are aware of the news reports, but we will not make any comments at this stage,” said a spokesman.
YTN reported that the causalities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong – a bustling industrial city on Yalu River – 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.
North Korea’s state-run news agency today confirmed that Kim had made a secretive trip to China this week but carried no comments on the reported explosion.
The accident resembled a disaster in Iran on in February when runaway railway wagons carrying fuel and industrial chemicals derailed in the town Neyshabur, setting off explosions that destroyed five villages. At least 200 people were killed.
