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SEOUL: Heavy rains have pummeled North Korea for a second time in
a month; state media said Friday, as the communist nation struggles
to contain disease outbreaks from earlier floods.
Rice and other crops were lost as
rains spawned by “Typhoon Wipha” inundated western provinces and
the capital Pyongyang in the past three days, according to the
official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
It said the new downpours had
caused “heavy losses in many sectors” of the economy and some
areas damaged by last month’s floods had again been hit.
Kim Un-Chol, deputy head of North
Korea’s Red Cross Society, said diseases were spreading because of
the damage to hospitals and other infrastructure in the impoverished
state caused by the August rains.
Chosun Sinbo quoted, “What we
are most concerned about now is disease outbreaks,” as saying, a
pro-Pyongyang newspaper published in Japan.
“Many patients are suffering
from diarrhea,” Kim said, adding that water treatment facilities
had been contaminated.
Health facilities were “in
miserable condition” with 562 hospitals wrecked and 2,100 clinics
damaged. “Drug stores were inundated and all medicines there were
soaked and ruined.”
Last month’s devastating
floods, which relief agencies said were the worst in a decade, left
at least 600 people dead or missing.
Kim Un-Chol said more than 40,000
homes and 8,000 public buildings had been destroyed along with 700
kilometers (435 miles) of road and 135 kilometers of rail lines.
Pyongyang’s Chunggang TV said
swollen rivers flooded “hundreds of hectares” of crops.
“Rice and other crops waiting
to be harvested were lost, as vast areas of farm land were inundated
again by downpours which fell even as the country has yet to recover
from damaged inflicted by the monsoon rains last month,” the
station reported.
The clearing and terracing of
hillsides to create more cropland is a major reason for the periodic
severe flooding.
--AFP
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