Hundreds Dead & Missing in North Korean Floods

Hundreds of North Koreans are dead or missing and thousands of homes have been destroyed after days of torrential rain, according to the official KCNA news agency monitored in London.

The Korean Central News Agency reported on Monday that crops had been ruined and infrastructure, including major railways, roads, bridges and power lines, were left badly damaged by the rains between Aug. 7 and 12.

"The torrential rain left hundreds of persons dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 houses," KCNA said, adding that its report included data up to and including Sunday.

Tens of thousands of hectares of farmland were flooded, and 800 public buildings, more than 540 bridges and 70 sections of railway destroyed, it added.

Three big storms hit North Korea in 2006, and a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported that more than 800 people were killed or went missing from the resulting floods.

Years of mismanagement of the farming sector mean the country does not produce enough food to feed its nearly 23 million people. Famine in the mid-to-late-1990s may have killed up to 10 percent of the population, experts have said.

Even in a good year, North Korea still falls about 1 million tonnes short of the food it needs to feed its people.

Other parts of the region have been hit by severe flooding, which has killed around 780 people in South Asia in the past two weeks.