North Korea's official media has admitted that hundreds of people were dead or missing after a severe typhoon followed by heavy rain hit the country on July 10.

Good Friends, a long-term aid partner for North Korea, declined to reveal the sources for its figures. Other international aid agencies have given lower numbers, based on official North Korean statistics.

Serious flooding helped trigger a famine in the mid-1990s in which aid groups claim some two million North Koreans died.

A decade later the country is still unable to feed its people and damage to farmland from the latest flooding has sparked concerns that chronic food shortages may worsen again this year.

North Korea's bare hillsides, stripped of tree cover by impoverished residents looking for fuel, are particularly vulnerable to flooding and landslides caused by erosion.

Two weeks of heavy rainfall sent rainwater sweeping down deforested hillsides, unleashing rivers of mud on farms and villages.

A South Korean expert said energy and food shortages were behind the deforestation as North Koreans seek firewood and try to farm hillsides.

"North Korea began developing mountainside farming from the 1970s in an effort to boost food production," said Kwon Tae-Jin of the Korea Rural Economic Institute. "But that just aggravated the food shortage and made the country very vulnerable to heavy rains."

Worst-hit areas include Sinyang and other counties along the upstream of the Taedong river which runs through the center of Pyongyang, leaving thousands of people dead or missing, the aid group said.

In Haeju, 105 kilometers (90 miles) south of Pyongyang, witnesses saw 200 bodies fished out of floodwaters, Good Friends said.

Malaria was now spreading in southern regions, the group added.

Though a massive relief operation was under way, Good Friends said that North Korea's army was confined to barracks because of tension with the outside world over its recent missile tests.

The missiles shot on July 5 triggered condemnation from the international community and weapons-related sanctions from the United Nations.

Angry South Korea suspended rice and other humanitarian aid to the communist North just days before the typhoon hit.

South Korea's former unification minister Jeong Se-Hyun, who is now leading the non-governmental Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, said North Korea was in crisis but felt it was in no positon to request aid after defying the international community over its missile launches.

"It seems that North Korea is saying 'We'll receive things that others give, but we can't tell them to give,'" he said.

Even so, earlier Wednesday the Korea National Red Cross (KNRC) of South Korea said its North Korean counterpart had rejected an offer of help.

"We offered them help through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. They expressed thanks but said they would do it for themselves," KNRC spokesman Kim Hyung-Sup told AFP.

An increasingly isolated Pyongyang has also been locked in a prolonged standoff with the United States and its allies over its nuclear weapons program.

This week, citing flood damage, Pyongyang cancelled a joint celebration with South Korea scheduled for the North Korean capital on August 15, the anniversary of liberation from the 1910-1945 Japanese rule.

It also put off a mass propaganda festival known as the Arirang festival which was scheduled to run from August 15 through October.

Reeckless Deforestation Blamed For Flood Damage In North Korea
by Jun Kwanwoo
SEOUL, Aug 2, 2006 (AFP) - Decades of reckless deforestation have stripped North Korea of tree cover that provides natural protection from catastrophic flooding, experts say.

Energy-starved residents have used every scrap of wood from the countryside to cook food or heat homes through the bitter winters.

This leaves the country vulnerable to flooding and landslides on a massive scale, they say.

Government officials have made the problem worse by encouraging residents to expand farmland into the hillsides in a bid to boost food production, said Kwon Tae-Jin, of Seoul's state-funded Korea Rural Economic Institute.

"North Korea began stripping hillsides for farming from the 1970s in an effort to boost food production. North Korea's policy, however, has aggravated its food shortage as it is now very vulnerable to heavy rains," Kwon said.

"Along with the lack of facilities to control floods like reservoirs, chronic energy shortages have also played a role."

Those factors all contributed to flooding triggered by a July 10 typhoon that left up to 10,000 North Koreans dead or missing, according to an independent aid group Good Friends.

Most analysts here say the scale of the disaster stems from the communist government's misguided policies.

"The erosion of earth and sand is getting more serious by the year in North Korea because of a wrong-headed government policy, leading to heavier damage," said Kwon.

North Korean residents are still chopping down trees recklessly for fuel, according to officials at South Korean's unification ministry which handles relations with the North.

The official analyzing North Korea's economy at the ministry said the problem would not go away in the near future.

"Despite campaigns to plant trees, there has been no real progress in resolving the deforestation problem because they still suffer a chronic lack of fuel and food," he said.

Pyongyang has yet to disclose a final casualty report, with its official media so far reporting hundreds of people dead or missing in the floods.

Other countries hit by similar heavy downpours in the region had relatively fewer casualties, notably neighboring South Korea. It was also hit by the same typhoon and heavy moonsoon rains but suffered only 19 flood-related deaths.

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