- SEOUL (Reuters) -- Up to
3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided
and exploded at a North Korean station Thursday, hours after leader Kim
Jong-il had passed through, South Korea's YTN television said.
-
- YTN quoted witnesses in its report while South Korea's
Yonhap news agency, which spoke of widespread destruction, also said there
were thousands of casualties. Neither Yonhap nor YTN gave a breakdown of
deaths and injuries.
-
- Yonhap quoted sources in the Chinese city of Dandong
that borders the North as saying the explosion occurred around 1 p.m. --
nine hours after Kim's special train was reported to have passed on its
way back to Pyongyang after a visit to China.
-
- "The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment
and debris flew high into the sky," Yonhap said, quoting the unidentified
Chinese sources.
-
- The sources said cargo trains carrying gasoline and liquefied
petroleum gas collided at Ryonchon station 30 miles south of the border.
-
- Yonhap also quoted a senior Defense Ministry official
as saying the South's military -- which eavesdrops on North Korea -- had
heard about the blast through "intelligence channels directed against
the North."
-
- There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything
other than an accident. But the explosion came after Kim met China's new
leadership during a rare foreign visit to discuss the North's nuclear weapons
plans and tentative economic reforms.
-
- North Korea appears to have cut international telephone
lines to the area to prevent information about the explosion getting out,
Yonhap added. The North appears to have declared a type of emergency in
the area.
-
- "We have not yet received official information on
the accident. We are trying to confirm the report," a Unification
Ministry spokesman said in Seoul. Other officials at various government
agencies also had no information.
-
- Yonhap said the sources said people in Dandong were concerned
their friends or relatives could have been caught up on the explosion.
Traders from both sides criss-cross the border area.
-
- A railway worker on the Chinese side of the Dandong border
crossing told Reuters he had not heard of a blast and had seen no signs
of any emergency effort under way.
-
- "The closest station to here in North Korea is in
Sinuiju (on the border), and I would have heard it. But I didn't hear anything,"
he said by telephone.
-
- North Korea's official media broke their silence on Kim's
three-day trip to Beijing Thursday -- strongly suggesting Kim was safely
back in Pyongyang -- but did not mention the explosion. Kim does not travel
by air when he does venture outside North Korea.
-
- Residents in Pyongyang said by telephone there was nothing
unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military
songs and music -- standard evening fare.
-
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