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SEOUL: A South Korean aid group said Tuesday that about 110 people
were killed in a gasoline pipeline blast 10 days ago in the
northwest of North Korea.
The group, Good Friends, said all the dead
perished in flames when the pipeline blew up in Sonchon county in
North Pyongan province on June 9.
“Informed sources told us about 110 people
were killed in the blast,” Noh Oh-Jae, a group official, told AFP.
She refused to further identify the sources.
Noh said the disaster occurred when villagers
gathered around a previously cracked pipeline to collect gasoline.
“Someone ignited a flame by mistake, causing a
huge explosion that sent flames and smoke billowing up, engulfing
people,” she said.
Officials at the South’s spy agency, the
National Intelligence Service, and the unification ministry said
they could not confirm the report.
Good Friends said the pipeline carried gasoline
from a petrochemical plant at Pihyon, near the border with China, to
Taedong county west of Pyongyang.
People from state organizations and firms in the
border city of Sinuiju and nearby areas were mobilized to battle the
blaze, it said, adding the fire was brought under control at 10am
the following morning.
“Petroleum spewing from the cracked pipeline
that runs through rice and paddy fields in Sonchon drew many
villagers,” Noh said.
North Koreans are desperately short of energy
fuels including oil, more than 90 percent of which is imported from
China.
--AFP
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