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North Korea floods hurt better looking harvests - UN |
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| CHINA: October 23, 2001 | ||
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BEIJING - This month's floods in North Korea will hurt what was shaping up to be a better harvest than last year's, exacerbating the country's already grave food shortages, a United Nations agency said.
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"Despite a prolonged drought from March to June, it had appeared the main rice and maize crops, which are presently being harvested, would be more substantial than last year," said Gerald Bourke, spokesman with the World Food Programme (WFP) in Beijing. "Obviously, with the flooding, that picture has been modified somewhat," Bourke, who returned to Beijing last week from a visit to North Korea, told Reuters Video News at the weekend. North Korean state media reported floods killed at least 81 people, left 27 missing and thousands of others homeless after two days of intense rain earlier this month in southeastern coastal Kangwon province. State media said scores of ships sank during the deluge. The floods followed one of the country's worst ever spring droughts. And North Korea, which has suffered widespread food shortages since 1995 from natural disasters and mismanagement of the state farm system, was bracing for more shortages this year. CHILDREN HARDEST HIT Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have died from famine or related diseases and the U.N. World Food Programme is feeding a third of the country's 22 million people. Children are among the hardest hit victims. The WFP estimated the flooding from heavy rains on October 9-10 ruined about 50,000 tonnes of rice paddy in Kangwon, already listed as a "food deficit province" because it relies on food from more fertile areas. WFP video footage showed workers, including school-age children, trudging through submerged rice fields outside Wonsan, home to 309,000 people, trying to salvage stalks. The losses agitate the already precarious food situation in North Korea, where just 20 percent of the land is arable. "Although the harvest might be higher than last year's, the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) will still need substantial amounts of food aid from abroad because it is still very far away form self-sufficiency," Bourke said. The WFP has initiated food-for-work projects focusing on environmental protection. Workers are repairing river embankments, deepening streams and reforesting mountains to prevent further flooding. In exchange, they receive food grains. Drought, soil infertility and famine have forced North Korean farmers to plant crops on steep hillsides and to double-crop. The Kangwon flooding was partially caused by a tidal surge that prevented run-off water from draining into the sea, the WFP said.
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Story by John Ruwitch
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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