N.Korea Blast Kills 54, Injures 1,249, Red Cross Says

[maddezmom]

BEIJING (Reuters) - A blast believed to have been caused by explosives on rail wagons has killed 54 people and injured 1,249 people in North Korea, a Red Cross spokesman said on Friday, quoting North Korean authorities.
John Sparrow, a regional delegation spokesman for the IFRC in Beijing, told Reuters 1,850 households and 12 public buildings were leveled by the blast near the center of the town of Ryongchon, and another 6,350 homes were partly destroyed.

The figures, from Red Cross workers at the scene, were the first official figures to emerge more than a day after the disaster on Thursday. Sparrow said the number of casualties could climb as rescue crews combed through the rubble.

"That figure could increase, obviously," Sparrow said of the death toll, after speaking to Red Cross officials at the scene of the accident.

~snip~
more: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4920134

spokesperson for Red Cross on CNNI now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. My worry is how Kim will interpret this

as a personal attack or just an accident.

And it is tragic, btw

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. If those figures are roughly right

then the death and injury toll is thankfully low. I believe the explosion was in the middle of the day; to have 12 public buildings (though I suppose those could be single-room offices) and 1850 households 'leveled' and have less than that number of people injured, and only 54 killed is very surprising. Perhaps the 'leveled' figure includes buildings destroyed by subsequent fire, in which case people would have had a chance to escape. I fear this might mean '54 bodies found so far' rather than '54 people missing presumed dead'.

[wickerwoman]

3. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the 54 number refers to confirmed deaths.

We didn't have anything near an accurate idea of casualities in the WTC until weeks later.

If the initial report was 3000 killed, I'd be really surprised if the actual number was less than a few hundred.

Not trying to be morbid- it's tragic no matter what the actual number.

[shockingelk]

5. 1,850 households and 12 public buildings

and "only" 54 deaths?

That seems uncannily lucky. Maybe it means the Red Cross can only definitively confirm 54 deaths? 1,850 leveled households and 12 leveled public buildings leaves lots of rubble.

[underpants]

8. I'm not buying that either WHAT WAS ON THOSE TRAINS?

My wife put some perspective on this last night as we watched the news. The 3,000 number (the 1,800 households too) sounds like it wasn't just gasoline or even dynamite/explosives as posted below. Sounds like it was of a more nuclear origin, we could be wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case-IF we ever really find out.

[maddezmom]

11. seems like the NK officials contridict themselves

BEIJING -- North Korea's government told aid workers at least 150 people were killed when two trains loaded with explosives collided and blew up near the Chinese border, an aid official told Irish radio Friday.

The North's government said the explosion occurred when trains carrying dynamite touched power lines, Anne O'Mahony, regional director of the Irish aid agency Concern, told RTE by telephone from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

~snip~
More: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=NKorea%20Train%20Explosion%20Death%20Toll

So did 2 collide or did trains touch a power line? :shrug: I got called a tin foiler yesterday for having thoughts this situation was strange, but today I'll gladly wear a hat.:dunce:

[Just Me]

14. Yeah, my suspiciousness will not be squelched,...

,...until more consistent reports are published.

This morning, I caught a glimpse of a satellite photo of the cloud and it was enormous. Although I am not closed to the possibility, I am having great difficulty accepting that devastation of that magnitude was caused by a train wreck.

:shrug:

[MaineDem]

12. If it was nuclear wouldn't satellites detect it?

Don't we have sniffer satellites or something?

I also thought about a nuke but I can't believe it wouldn't have been detected somewhere.

[underpants]

13. Yes it could be

but then THAT would have to be released by W&Co. who are only slightly less secretive that Kim Il's regime.

Now if they really want people to think there is DANGER about they might let that known (all this is speculative of course) but then the question of who really is/was the real threat would pop back up.

I dunno this could be a whole other thread.

[NickB79]

15. Nuclear detonations are detected by seismic monitors mainly

There are literally hundreds of them around the world that are NOT controlled by the US. That would be some amazing feat, to detonate a nuke and not have the British, French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Japanese, Australians, Canadians, or the Chinese right next door say a word after detecting it. You can't hide the blast of even a small nuke from these detectors.

[theboss]

18. W is all-powerful

The man caused an earthquake for God's sake.

Yet, at the same time is too dumb to come in out of the rain.

[theboss]

17. If it was nuclear, the Red Cross would probably know

And would have evacuated their people.

[Just Me]

20. I read that the damage was consistent with massive bombing,...

,...rather than a nuke. I imagine the IRC would tend to avoid a radiation field. Nevertheless, it is still unclear precisely what caused such an enormous explosion and an investigation is nowhere near complete, probably won't be for some time.

[theboss]

21. And we'll never really know the result

It's North Korea.

[chenGOD]

19. It was during the day.

About 2:00, as air raid sirens went off down here in Seoul at that time. There was no warning of the air raid, and they usually give a warning when it's just a drill.

[maddezmom]

4. NK authorites belief blast caused by explosives, but....

Huge blast rocks North Korea
Large death toll -- economic lifeline from China cut

<<Initial reports indicated that two trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas had collided around 1 p.m. just north of the Ryongchon train station, which is about 12 miles south of North Korea's border with China, according to South Korean news reports. But the reports also cited officials who said the disaster could have been caused by the explosion of a gas reservoir near the station or a passenger car colliding with a train carrying fuel.>>

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/04/23/MNG5I69UIL1.DTL

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Latest BBC report says dynamite and electrical lines

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3651705.stm

However, diplomatic sources in Pyongyang say the casualty figures are in the thousands.

They also say the blast - initially thought to have been caused by two trains colliding - was triggered by an electric wire dropping onto two wagons loaded with dynamite.

A similar account is given by a foreign aid worker, who says North Korean officials told him the blast happened when explosives were being shunted in rail cars.

A UN official in North Korea was just interviewed on the BBC, and he said the North Korean government has officially asked the UN for help, and gave the electrical wires/dynamite as the reason for the explosion.

[maddezmom]

7. same for Rueters link: 150 dead and over 1000 injured

"They (North Korean authorities) have said that 150 people died in the explosion, including some schoolchildren, some buildings have collapsed, 800 residences were destroyed, and over 1,000 people were injured," Ann O'Mahony, the regional director of Concern, told Irish state radio RTE on Friday.

North Korean officials said railworkers were trying to uncouple two carriages carrying dynamite and link them to another train.

"They got caught in the overhead electric wiring. The dynamite exploded and that was the cause of the explosion," O'Mahony said.

Russia's Tass news agency reported from Pyongyang that the explosives were to be used to build an irrigation canal.

International aid agencies have been invited to visit the scene of the train blast on Saturday, O'Mahony said. A Pyongyang representative of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office also received the invitation, Brussels said.

`snip~
more: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=498352§ion=news

[maddezmom]

9. "EU diplomat to visit site of North Korea train disaster" link

North Korea has invited an official from the European Commission in Pyongyang to travel to the site of a train disaster to assess aid needs, the EU's executive arm said on Friday.

"We have met with the North Korean authorities in Pyongyang and they have invited our representative to go on location tomorrow morning in order to assess the need for additionnal humanitarian aid," it said in a statement.

A Red Cross official in Beijing has estimated casualties from the rail crash that occurred close North Korea's northern border with China on Thursday, at least 54 dead and 1,249 injured, although there were fears that the true toll could be higher.

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040423110841.u4de836t

[maddezmom]

10. NK has accepted help from: UN, Red Cross and WHO

<<North Korea today accepted offers of help from the United Nations and the Red Cross in dealing with the disaster, the UN's World Food Program said. The UN will lead a team tomorrow on an assessment mission to the disaster site in the town of Ryongchon, near the Chinese border, WFP spokeswoman Rene McGuffin said by telephone from the agency's Rome headquarters.

``When we have that assessment report, we can better assess the needs and react,'' said McGuffin, whose agency has an office in North Korea from which it directs aid projects to help the impoverished communist nation. The acceptance follows a series of meetings today in the capital, Pyongyang, between North Korean officials and the UN's humanitarian coordinator in the country, Masood Hyder, she said.>>

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aRGOQrAL13Hs&refer=top_world_news

[NickB79]

16. Terminology: Casualties vs. deaths

For everyone reading "3000 casualties" and assuming 3000 were killed, remember: casualties commonly refer to the number of dead AND injured. A broken leg in this case would be counted as a casualty, just as how reports of 15,000 US casualties in Iraq refer to 700 dead and thousands wounded. Thankfully the death toll appears to be far less than 3000.