Hundreds of Casualties Feared in North Korea Train Explosion

[SensoVision]

have just heard scary news the worst thing about this is that things in North Korea are always kept in secret just like it was here due the time of xUSSR, have no idea why they keep such truth from their own people
Soure of the news: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/international/asia/22CND-KORE.html?ex=1083297600&en=bd3b8b1548c61c5a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

SEOUL, South Korea, Friday, April 23 — Hundreds of people were killed and injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded in a North Korean railroad station on Thursday, only hours after North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, had passed by, according to reports in South Korean news media.

The cable television network YTN estimated that up to 3,000 people had been killed or injured in huge explosions that followed the collision of a train carrying gasoline and a second carrying liquefied petroleum gas.

"We've obtained the information that there was a large explosion near Ryongchon Station," a South Korean Defense Ministry official who was not identified told the Yonhap news agency.

North Korea is such a secretive and unconventional society — Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, is still the head of state a decade after his death — that it is not expected to issue news of the train wreck any time soon.

Train wrecks with large numbers of fatalities are rare in North Korea, largely because trains creak slowly along rails that were first laid during the Japanese occupation, more than 60 years ago.

The explosion took place on North Korea's busiest rail line, on the route from Pyongyang to China. A lifeline for the impoverished nation, the route brings in food and fuel from China, the North's leading trading partner and a major source of aid.

The blast took place around noon, near the time when North Korea's state-controlled news media first informed its people that Mr. Kim, the nation's leader, had made a rare trip abroad to China. Mr. Kim, who leaves the country only in a specially armored rail car, a gift to his father by Stalin, had secretly passed through Ryongchon station shortly before dawn, nine hours before the blast. Mr. Kim, known as the "Dear Leader," does not travel by airplane.

It was Mr. Kim's first trip to China in three years. The blast undoubtedly will shake the leadership of North Korea, a suspicious elite that maintains a personality cult around Mr. Kim, whose decade in power has coincided with the nation's impoverishment.

North Korea declared a state of alert in the area of the explosion and cut some international telephone links, Yonhap reported.

"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris flew high into the sky," the South Korean news agency reported, quoting unidentified Chinese officials. Ryongchon is on flat coastal land, 30 miles south of the North's border with China.

North Korea's official announcement on Thursday of Mr. Kim's three-day trip to Beijing seemed to signal that he had returned safely to Pyongyang.

Reuters reported that residents of Pyongyang reached by telephone had said that there was nothing unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military songs and music — standard evening fare.

[rosie]

Thanks Denis, I'm just about ready to hit the sack, but want to know about this. Will switch my home improvement channel to news!

[SensoVision]

guess you'll not find out much since it's still kept in secret

[Jeanne]

Only sometime ago there were a few germans which went to North Korea to see their trains.
So German reporters went with them and they was allowed to make a documentation of them.
They showed a lot of old trains went with old car wheels.
The germans was also allowed to film pyong yang and they wanted to talk with a few people.
But as they saw the germans they changed there way or just ran away 

The red cross of north Korea  said that one train was filled with dynomide..

[rosie]

By our morning news we had this story, but they were saying 150 deaths and I got the feeling the news was not well informed. I shop at a little market run by Koreans and the wife went to Korea and traveled by train to see all her relatives. She returned a couple weeks ago. She is as sweet as apple pie and I am so glad she made her visit when she did!

[Queen Bee]

How awful... So sorry to hear this news.

[rosie]

In reply to your post:


Key Keeper
Jr. Member

Posts: 88


   
     Re: Hundreds of Casualties Feared in North Korea Train Explosion
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2004, 12:52:28 PM »   

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Only sometime ago there were a few germans which went to North Korea to see their trains.
So German reporters went with them and they was allowed to make a documentation of them.
They showed a lot of old trains went with old car wheels.
The germans was also allowed to film pyong yang and they wanted to talk with a few people.
But as they saw the germans they changed there way or just ran away 

The red cross of north Korea  said that one train was filled with dynomide..

Jeanne are you trying to tell us something or was this info already a part of this story? Not by ANY means trying to insult you!  But maybe I saw something in your post by mistake? aM I MISTAKEN? Or am I GUILTY OF NOT READING THE LATEST NEWS?? MORE LIKELY! I spend waaaaaay ttoooooo much time watching the home and garden channel!
 

[Hope]

This is a  terrible tragedy. I am glad it is not thousands dead as they had feared. I saw some of the footage on TV last night. It was very sad. It looked like the place was either hit by an earthquake or by a bomb. Completely amazing how much damage was done. I hope this will have taught the government a lesson on safety. Not only their government, but all of the governments around the world.