Flood victims' bodies float into S. Korea
Pastor Dale Morgan
Flood victims' bodies float into S. Korea*
* Story Highlights
* Bodies of six males and four females floated down the Imjin, fire
official says
* Victims include two children and a teenager, official says
* An 11th body found via different river, S. Korea's Unification
Ministry official says
* At least 221 people killed, 80 missing in floods, U.N. office says
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- The bodies of 11 North Koreans, victims
of floods that have killed hundreds in the reclusive state, floated into
the South on the Imjin River, which crosses the heavily armed border,
South Korean officials said Tuesday.
Destruction caused by floods are seen in Kangwon, North Korea, Sunday.
Floods in the impoverished North have destroyed thousands of buildings,
left more than 300,000 people homeless and wiped out farmland in a
country that battles chronic food shortages, international relief
agencies said.
The bodies of six males and four females floated down the Imjin and were
found last week by troops who watch over the river as it crosses into
the South about 60 km (40 miles) northwest of Seoul, a Gyeonggi province
fire official said.
An official from South Korea's Unification Ministry said separately that
a body washed down from North Korea via a different river into Kangwon
province.
"We have notified North Korea that we have found 11 bodies and that they
will be handed over later on," the official said.
One or two bodies have been carried down the river in floods in recent
years, but never as many as 10, the Gyeonggi official said.
The victims included two children about 4 or 5 years old and one
teenager, said the official, who asked not to be named.
"There were no clothes on them because they probably had been ripped
apart while floating down the river on the rocks and trees," the fire
official said.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last
week at least 221 people had been killed and 80 were missing after some
of the worst flooding to hit the communist North.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
said on Monday it has launched an emergency appeal for flood relief,
seeking $5.5 million to help 3.7 million North Koreans affected by the
floods.
South Korea, still technically at war with North Korea after their
1950-53 war ended without a formal peace treaty, will start shipping
emergency aid to the North later this week.
North Korea's official media has said more than 11 percent of its paddy
and maize fields were submerged, buried or swept away as heavy rains
saturated the lower half of the country.
The secretive state took the unusual step of showing on its official
state TV footage of flooding in the capital, Pyongyang, and other parts
of the country.
Heavy rains that pelted the country earlier this month gave way to clear
skies this week, bringing some relief.
A famine in the mid-to-late-1990s is estimated to have killed as much as
10 percent of North Korea's 23 million population.