The regional director of the UN program, Anthony Banbury, said Pyongyang's new policy of farming hillsides and mountains without first terracing the soil had already led to massive erosion and posed a major environmental hazard.

"If there are huge floods as there were in the mid-90s the extent is probably going to be much worse because they are much more flood prone," Banbury told a media conference late Tuesday.

"As the soil will come off the mountains it will fill up stream beds and river beds so when the rains come there will be floods. This whole emergency started in the mid-90s because of the flooding in North Korea and they werent plowing the hillsides then," he said.

Banbury said urban areas were at risk of disease outbreaks as silt caused by the new farming techniques had already blocked up sewage systems in towns and cities.

"There's so much silt accumulated that they've lost 50 percent of their capacity so when it rains, instead of rivers overflowing the sewage overflows and is going into the road and people's homes," he said.

North Korea is the single largest Asian recipient of UN food aid and the WFP estimates that 85 percent of the population is malnourished, with 30 percent of those suffering severe malnourishment.

Banbury, who was one of the few foreigners allowed access to the recent Ryongchon train disaster, said there was now an urgent need for an extra 1,000 tons of food aid to the communist state as much of the existing aid had been diverted to the train disaster.

He said the regime had shown great willingness to assist the WFP during the latest crisis but doubted whether Pyongyang would have the resources to handle an emerging new disaster such as further floods.

"They can mobilize people quickly to respond but they can't mobilize equipment, medicine or food," he said.

TERRA.WIRE