UN, Red Cross Teams Visit North Korea Rail Blast Site - at least 154 dead, 1300 injured

Bloomberg ^ | April 24, 2004

[yonif]

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations and International Red Cross workers traveled to the North Korean city near the Chinese border where a railway explosion left at least 154 people dead and 1,300 injured. Aid offers poured in.

North Korea's media broke its silence on the explosion at a railway depot in Ryongchon, a city of 130,000 people. ``The damage is very serious,'' the government-owned Korea Central News Agency said. It blamed the accident on ``carelessness during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer.''

[DoughtyOne]

Ah, the U.N. to the rescue, wouldn't you know it. For years they've been unable to do anything about nukes in North Korea since they didn't have any contacts there, but now they have a pipeline to deliver aide.

Kofi's organization is such a gem.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #1

Apparently, N. Korean regime decided to fall back on its favorite strategy:

Wring more aids from outsiders by using to its advantage catastrophic failures of its own making.

The regime invited U.N. officials and ambassadors from EU countries to the accident site for guided tours. This is a PR gambit to ask more aids from them(more than required for disaster relief), hoping that some of these players would love to jump for this opportunity just to undermine American influence. This way it may want to blunt the American pressure. It would play more of the same angle to S. Korea, asking for the help to reconstruct its collapsed rail system and probably more. Since S. Korea is going Euro these days(the current gov loves "European model"), this could work as well.

The catch is that he wants all of these things to be done while his regime makes only cosmetic changes at best.

Finally, judging from this latest reaction from N. Korean regime, odds are that Kim Jong-il is alive and well. If he is incapacitated, N. Korea would be in a lock-down mode by now.

[Tommyjo]

And the US is a member of the UN. If you are a US citizen then it is your money that is also helping finance aid relief to the North Korea. For example US is the largest food and medical aid supplier to North Korea.

[DoughtyOne]

Yeah, don't remind me. I don't doubt we are the largest single aid giver. We just about always are. I'll bet the UN does it's damndest to take credit for it though.

It may be some of my money that goes to aid the U.N., but I'll guarantee you one thing, if it was by my choice, the U.N. would be located on Jupiter because it's gravity would prevent them from ever coming back, once we put them on it.

[knarf]

"The explosion was caused after an electricity pole was knocked down when an oil tanker hit two train carriages loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, Xinhua reported, citing Jang. The short circuit ignited the tanker and the chemicals."

No one seems to see the three elements of an ANFO miraculously put together to produce a "tragedy"?

Where was Arlen Sphincter and when did he know what?

[wideminded]

``The damage is very serious,'' the government-owned Korea Central News Agency said. It blamed the accident on ``carelessness during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer.''

As I understand it, ammonium nitrate is not explosive by itself.

[alloysteel]

Afghanistan and Iraq have been, and in many respects still are, deeply tormented lands. But North Korea has to be the most tormented of them all.

It has been said, that people deserve the government they get. This is only partly true. A few of the choices, made once and a long time ago, led to the rise and entrenchment of a very despotic regime. But once sufficiently entrenched, it is like discovering a nest of vipers between you and the only door to freedom. The paralyzing fear of the vipers, even though one by one they could be dealt with, prevents even the first move to circumvent the barrier that has been created. Moving about is a virtual impossibility for all but the privileged few in North Korea, and they are sufficiently rewarded to assure their compliance most of the time. For the few who stray, retribution is swift and devastating, serving as an example to quell any further unrest, and taking out the known troublemakers.

North Korea is cursed with the burden of this cult of personality as well as an economic system that has never worked except by threat and a system of brutal penalties. Their subjects have lived in abject poverty for so long they have little concept of a better existence.

And this misery will continue as long as those nations in a position to permit the conditions to improve fail to exercise even the most meagre of measures for relief to come to the lives of the great mass of the subjects. The rail lines and station will be rebuilt with foreign money (gifts, essentially), but no benefits will sift down to the individuals and families torn asunder by the disaster.

Kim Jong-Il will graciously accept offers of assistance to repair the physical damage, but will strenuously resist any notion of changing the conditions of life for the victims of this disaster, if any attempt is made to tie the two concepts together. No need to make the folks restive.

How can one be a Communist dictator and a deity simultaneously? I do not say it is impossible, because just look at the examples that exist. Louis XIV did not have that firm a grip on the throne. And Lord knows that Louis was thoroughly despised during his lifetime, yet it was only his rather effete and incompetent heirs who could be forced from power. But that was only to be replaced by an even more repressive regime.

[knarf]

See #6 above.

[genefromjersey]

The Independent (UK) published an article yesterday,that seems to have disappeared in the maw of Google.

1.The location of the "accident" is where N.Korea's weapons factories are sited. ( They placed them near the Chinese border in the belief-perhaps justified-that would deter the US from bombing them.)

2.The railroads-all electrified-have underground power lines.Electrical service ranges from bad to awful.1-2 years ago,power failed as a train was climbing a mountain.It rolled back and hit a passenger train,causing about 3000 casualties.

3.There have been at least 3 known attempts by Army officers to assassinate the "Beloved Leader" - and there were numerous attampts against his Fearless Father.

4. South Korean Intelligence is making a big deal of "verifying" this was an accident.

5. As noted by some of the other respondents here,Ammonium nitrate and/or Anfo need a bit of "coaxing" to explode like that,though I do recall one AN blast in the US-I think it was Texas City-shortly after WWII,when a shipload of AN caught fire.With a really hot fire,and the stout confinement of a ship's hull,you don't need a primer and booster.

I'd say-offhand-this was a trainload of high-grade military explosives,that had the "bad joss" to meet a primer and booster charge.

Supposedly the Fearless Leader had passed through 9 hours earlier-but who can confirm that ? He might have escaped being pureed by a matter of minutes,for all we know !

[nuconvert]

"The explosion was caused after an electricity pole was knocked down when an oil tanker hit two train carriages loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, Xinhua reported, citing Jang. The short circuit ignited the tanker and the chemicals."

This is a new take.....

And where is the statement from Jong Il?
There was a Reuters article too....no statement from JongIl.
Seems odd..........

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #12

One of the recent news articles reports that half of 150 dead are students. Some in S. Korea now speculate that students were called out to give a welcome ceremony to Kim Jong-il who was passing by. If this is true, his train could be at the station or passing by around the time of explosion.

Looking into this incident from outside could generate more questions than answers.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #13

Kim Jong-il rarely talk to a press, probably never have. N. Korea has to show a pretty convincing video to outsiders to dispel suspicions about his wellbeing.

[nuconvert]

"Kim Jong-il rarely talk to a press"

I know he doesn't.

I agree.

Seems like this is a very important time for him to say SOMETHING. Strange that they haven't even PRETENDED that he said something. And did you see that pic of train from Reuters? It's got a big hole in the side, but injured thousands? Buildings collapsed? Doesn't look that bad........ Whole thing is strange. But then, so is N.Korea.

[nuconvert]

I hadn't heard about children greeting him.
The plot thickens..................

[genefromjersey]

What would be funny-if it were not so sad-is that the news agencies (AP,Reuters,AFP) are cooing with rapture over North Korea's "unusual degree of openness" !

The capacity for "liberal" self-delusion seems endless...

[eastforker]

Texas city mishap was AN that caught fire and the ship didn't get towed out to sea quick enough, so the story goes.

[lepton]

Floods and drought the past decade have pushed North Korea's economy to the brink of collapse and left as many as a third of 22 North Koreans starving,

22?