The fearsome picture of devastation from North Korean train explosions near the Chinese border took shape yesterday with initial reports saying 150 were killed, 1,249 injured and 8,200 houses or apartments damaged -- many of them destroyed.
North Korea's government said the explosion occurred when train cars carrying dynamite touched power lines, according to Chris Wardle, an official with the Irish aid agency Concern.
"The numbers we've been told are 150 dead," some of them schoolchildren, he said by telephone from Pyongyang.
Red Cross spokesman John Sparrow in Beijing said the blast had killed at least 54 people and injured 1,249, but that he expected the toll to rise, citing massive damage. The explosion destroyed 1,850 apartments or houses and damaged 6,350, he said.
Initial reports by South Korean media said 3,000 people were killed or hurt in the disaster at a railway station in Ryongchon, a bustling town about 150km north of Pyongyang.
The secretive North's communist government was silent yesterday about the disaster, but invited foreign officials to visit the site today.
"Until that happens, we won't know what really happened there," Wardle said.
Reports varied over what exactly exploded.
"We have been told that the accident was caused by live electrical wire getting in contact with dynamite," apparently while officials were trying to disconnect the carriages and link them up to another train, Wardle said.
Sparrow said the trains were carrying explosives similar to those used in mining. China's Xinhua News Agency reported the blast was blamed on ammonium nitrate -- a chemical used in explosives, rocket fuel and fertilizer -- leaking from one train. South Korea's unification minister said the trains were carrying fuel.
The blast leveled the train station, a school and apartments within a 500m radius, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting Chinese witnesses. It said there were about 500 passengers and railway officials in the station at the time of the explosion.
Ryongchon is the site of chemical and metalworking plants, and has a population of 130,000.
Sparrow said Red Cross workers in the North were distributing tents and blankets to 4,000 families, while the international group was putting together hospital kits containing antibiotics, bandages and anesthetics.
Chinese hospitals near the border were put on "high alert," he said.
There was no sign in Dandong, the Chinese border city nearest to the crash site, of injured people being brought out of North Korea. But the city's three biggest hospitals were preparing for a possible surge of patients.
"We're ready to offer our close neighbor our best medical help anytime," said an official at Dandong Chinese Hospital.
In Seoul, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said China was urging North Korea to send the injured across the border to hospitals in China. But he said Pyongyang was instead asking China to dispatch relief workers to the scene.
China confirmed the first fatalities yesterday afternoon, saying two Chinese were killed and 12 others injured in the disaster. The Xinhua report had cited the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang.
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
WARFARE: All sectors of society should recognize, unite, and collectively resist and condemn Beijing’s cross-border suppression, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said The number of Taiwanese detained because of legal affairs by Chinese authorities has tripled this year, as Beijing intensified its intimidation and division of Taiwanese by combining lawfare and cognitive warfare, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) made the statement in response to questions by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈柏洋) about the government’s response to counter Chinese public opinion warfare, lawfare and psychological warfare. Shen said he is also being investigated by China for promoting “Taiwanese independence.” He was referring to a report published on Tuesday last week by China’s state-run Xinhua news agency,
RSS