North Korea has requested immediate food aid after devastating floods last month, the United Nations says.
UN officials in Pyongyang said the need for aid was urgent after visiting flood-hit parts of the country to assess damage.
North Korea state media said that at least 119 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
Damage to infrastructure and farmland has affected the country’s already dire food shortage problem.
North Korea has requested immediate food aid after devastating floods last month
The most badly affected areas are Anju city and Songchon County in South Phyongan Province, and Chonnae County in Kangwon Province, said the UN.
Residents in these areas are in urgent need of food supplies, as well as clean water, as wells have been contaminated by sewerage during the floods.
A UN spokesman in New York confirmed that the North Korean government has asked the UN to release emergency supplies such as food and fuel.
Some international aid groups have already begun gathering supplies and donations. On Thursday, the Red Cross said it would allocate more than $300,000 for flood victims.
Recent images from Anju taken by state news agency KCNA showed houses underwater, flooded agricultural land and people sheltering in the upper stories of buildings.
Kim Kwang-Dok, vice-chairman of the Anju City People’s Committee, told the Associated Press news agency that the flooding was the worst in the city’s history.
The floods – which followed a severe drought earlier this year – have sparked fresh concern over North Korea’s struggle to feed its people.
North Korea relies on food aid because it cannot grow enough food to feed its people. Famine in the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A UN report released last month estimated that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million population suffer from a chronic shortage of food.
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Ten facts could paint the big picture of North Korea’s isolation from the international community.
1. High militarized area
The border between North and South Korea is one of the most militarized areas in the world, according to the State Department, with a combined total of almost two million military personnel under the control of Pyongyang (1.2 million), Seoul (680,000) and foreign powers including the United States (28,000). North Korean arms outnumber those in the South by about two to one, including offensive weapons such as tanks, long-range artillery, aircraft and armored personnel carriers. However, much of the military equipment in North Korea is obsolete.
2. Still at war
Both sides are technically in a state of war, after a ceasefire halted the Korean War more than 50 years ago. Tensions reached their highest levels in years in 2010 with the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. The South blamed the attack on Pyongyang, but North denied responsibility. Later that year, the North bombarded a South Korean island, the first such attack against civilian target since the 1950-53 Korean War.
3. 51 social categories
North Korea groups its citizens into 51 social categories, graded by loyalty to the regime, according to The Economist. Of those groups, 29 are considered to make up a mostly rural underclass that is hostile or at best ambivalent towards the regime.
4. Gourmet cuisine, starvation
Late dictator Kim Jong-Il had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine, while four in five of North Korean children suffer from malnutrition because food is poorly distributed. In March 2011, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that 6 million North Koreans needed food aid and a third of children were chronically malnourished or stunted daily potato rations have been cut by a third, to two for each person.
5. At least two inches shorter
Analysis of escapees from North Korea shows that those born after the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula in the North were consistently about two inches shorter than their counterparts in the South, according to a 2004 report in Economics and Human Biology. The minimum height for recruitment to the North Korean army is reported to have fallen by just under an inch. The well-nourished Kim Jong-Un was fit enough to have been a keen basketball player while at school in Switzerland, according to fellow students.
Kim Jong-Un was kept from public view until September 2010, when he was 27 years old and appeared with his father Kim Jong-Il
6. Secret children
Kim Jong-Un was kept from public view until September 2010, when he was 27 years old. The existence of his eldest brother, who was passed over in Kim Jong-Il’s succession, was hidden completely from grandfather Kim Il-Sung until his death in 1994.
7. “Clairvoyant wisdom”
North Korea is famous for its colorful use of language, praising its leaders and denouncing its critics. The statement announcing Kim Jong -Il’s death ran to 1,500 words, and was addressed to “All Party Members, Servicepersons and People”. It praised his “clairvoyant wisdom” and said he had “put the dignity and power of the nation on the highest level and ushered in the golden days of prosperity unprecedented in the nation’s history.” It concluded: “Arduous is the road for our revolution to follow and grim is the present situation. But no force on earth can check the revolutionary advance of our party, army and people under the wise leadership of Kim Jong-Un.”
8. China crucial
North Korea’s survival depends on crucial trade with China: in 2010, trade between the two was worth an estimated $3.5 billion, up nearly 30% from 2009.
9. What a golfer!
Kim Jong-Il piloted jet fighters, according to the country’s propaganda machine, even though he traveled by land for his infrequent trips abroad, reputedly because he was nervous about flying. He penned operas, had a photographic memory, produced movies and accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf, shooting 11 holes-in-one on the first round he ever played — if North Korea is to be believed.
10. War, war or jaw, jaw?
Despite the regular tensions, at least one expert thinks the North and South have too much to lose from a full-scale military conflict. Dr. Jim Hoare, a British former diplomat who served in the country, said both sides had “gone to the brink of conflict several times” but stopped short.
“Seoul [20 miles from the border] is a vulnerable city and the North would face annihilation.”
The United States has confirmed the decision to put on hold planned food aid to North Korea.
The decision comes after Pyongyang announced a new rocket launch, which the US says breaks the terms of a deal agreed last month.
Earlier reports that the food aid plans had been suspended were confirmed by a Pentagon official on Wednesday.
Peter Lavoy told lawmakers North Korea had violated a missile test moratorium agreement and could not be trusted to deliver the aid properly.
Under the deal signed in February, North Korea agreed to a partial freeze in nuclear activities and a missile test moratorium in return for US food aid.
Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, told a government committee that next month’s planned rocket launch “reflects [North Korea’s] lack of desire to follow through on their international commitments and so we’ve been forced to suspend our activities to provide nutritional assistance”.
The United States has confirmed the decision to put on hold planned food aid to North Korea
North Korea claims the launch – which is scheduled for between April 12-16 – is only a satellite and is for scientific purposes.
But the US and North Korea’s neighbors insist it will be a long-range missile test, breaking the terms of last month’s agreement.
The US has not delivered food aid to North Korea since 2009, but sent officials to Pyongyang’s ally China earlier this month to finalize plans to re-start food deliveries.
North Korea has suffered persistent food shortages since a famine in the 1990s, and relies on foreign aid to feed its people.
The planned 240,000 tons of food aid from the US was to go to children and pregnant women.
