North Korea PM inspects flooded region: state media

SEOUL: North Korea's prime minister has inspected flood-hit areas, state media said Tuesday, a day after it reported dozens of casualties and widespread damage.

Premier Choe Yong-Rim inspected areas of South Hwanghae province in the country's southwest and held a meeting on efforts to repair the damage, the official KCNA news agency said.

He underscored the need to get people's livelihoods in afflicted areas back to normal as soon as possible, it said, without giving the date of the visit.

The agency said Monday that a tropical storm and heavy rain over the past two months had left dozens dead, injured or missing and destroyed 2,900 homes.

Some 8,000 homeless were living in makeshift buildings, it said.

From late June to mid-July, nearly 60,000 hectares (148,200 acres) of farmland was submerged or washed away, raising concerns about this year's grain harvest, it said.

North Korea has relied heavily on international aid to feed its 24 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement sparked a 1990s famine in which hundreds of thousands died.

After decades of deforestation to create land for arable farming and provide firewood, the impoverished North is particularly vulnerable to flooding. In 2007 it reported at least 600 dead or missing due to such conditions.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011