*** TOPIC OF THE WEEK

Heavy Downpours Cause Huge Damage, Raise Concerns about Food Shortages in N.K.

  
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Heavy downpours battered much of North Korea recently, causing casualties and flooding homes, farmland and roads. The massive flooding raises fresh concerns that the North's already serious food shortages may worsen.

   The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on July 16 that downpours hit many parts of the country from July 12 to 15, with North and South Hwanghae provinces and South Hamgyong Province getting hit the hardest. North and South Hwanghae provinces received more than 250 millimeters of heavy rains during the period.

   "The downpour left at least 15,000 hectares of farmland inundated ... 10,000 hectares of land completely went underwater, and a lot of dwelling houses, public buildings and roads were destroyed," the report said.

   More than 3,000 hectares of rice paddies and farmland were "submerged or brought under silt" in Chongdan County of South Hwanghae Province, and other parts of the province also suffered damage, it said.

   In North Hwanghae Province, several dikes were destroyed and at least 5,900 hectares of rice paddies and farm fields were inundated or brought under silt, the report said.

   The northeastern city of Hamhung was also hit hard, with homes and roads being destroyed, hundreds of hectares of farmlands inundated and casualties caused, it said.

   The KCNA did not provide further details on casualties. It said recovery efforts were under way, but did not elaborate.

   South Korea's weather agency said on July 19 that the amount of precipitation during this year's rainy season, which started late last month, has exceeded three times that of an average year.

   According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) in Seoul, the South Hwanghae provincial city of Haju received 682 millimeters of rain from June 26 to July 18, some 3.6 times more than the average rainfall during that period of 185.9 millimeters. North Korea's border city of Kaesong received 658 millimeters of rain during the same period while the South Hamgyong provincial city of Pyongkang received 562 millimeters.

   In a report on July 12, the KCNA said a powerful typhoon caused casualties in North Korea and inflicted serious damage on farmland and other industrial facilities.

   Typhoon Meari brought downpours and gusts to North Korea for three days beginning on June 25, destroying about 160 houses and submerging or washing away about 21,000 hectares of farmland, according to the news agency.

   The heavy rain has also either destroyed or submerged industrial facilities, public buildings, roads and levees, the KCNA said, without elaborating on casualties. It said North Korea is rebuilding houses, public buildings, roads and bridges.

   The development could further strain the North's economy at a time when the North is grappling with food shortages.

   North Korea has been hit hard by floods in recent years, mainly because of its lack of investment in disaster control and severe deforestation.

   Last year, a massive flood swept through the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the border with China, inundating thousands of houses and a vast tract of farmland while killing 14 people, according to North Korea's media and international relief agencies.

   At the time, the International Federation of Red Cross spent US$370,000 on recovery operations. Despite frozen inter-Korean relations, South Korea also provided relief packages, including 5,000 tons of rice, 100,000 tons of cement and other goods, at the North's request.

   In 2007, North Korea was hit by the heaviest rainfall in 40 years, leaving some 600 people dead or missing and about 100,000 people homeless.

   North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 24 million population since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy in the mid-1990s. Pyongyang has stepped up appeals for food aid this year.

   North Korea and its millions of people are currently in the throes of another major famine, similar to the one they faced in the late 1990s. The current food shortage is apparently so severe that it's not only children, many of them orphans, who are begging for scraps of food on the streets, but normally well-fed members of the army are starving as well.

   As the food shortage in the impoverished country is a chronic problem, "fighting hunger is becoming the very battle that soldiers face daily," according to a newsletter of North Korea published recently by Good Friends, an organization dedicated to protecting peace and human rights, especially on the Korean Peninsula.

   An increasing number of North Korean soldiers have shown absence-without-leave (AWOL) behaviors to search for food and avoid intense military training.

   This becomes a great issue as the effects trickle down to farmers and inhabitants in the region, whom the soldiers steal food from. Just last month, a soldier in North Hwanghae Province killed a farmer for potatoes when the farmer resisted against him.

   Meanwhile, The Associated Press (AP) has asked its client agencies worldwide to withdraw a KCNA photo of flooding in the North's capital of Pyongyang, saying it appears to have been altered through digital technology. On July 16, the AP reported, quoting the KCNA, about heavy rains in the North that flooded farmland, destroyed homes and caused unspecified casualties.

   The photo taken by the KCNA was distributed to AP members and customers on July 16 and purports to show floods that hit Pyongyang a day earlier.

   On July 17, one day after the picture originally ran, the AP decided something about the picture didn't quite look right and issued a "kill notice" -- a message telling subscribers that the agency no longer stands by the photo.

   The AP, which has a contract with a Tokyo-based company to redistribute KCNA photos, said in an advisory, "Editors and librarians, please eliminate from your photo systems and archives the AP photo (from the KCNA) on July 16, 2011. The content of this image has been digitally altered and does not accurately reflect the scene. No other version of the photo is available."

   The American news agency, however, did not elaborate on the specifics of the manipulation. According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), AP spokesman Paul Colford said on July 18 that the photo in question made it onto the AP wire because of a human error at the AP.

   "The AP did not intend for the photo to go on its wire," Colford was quoted as saying by RFA. "It did go on the wire by mistake."

   North Korea watchers in Seoul speculate that the KCNA photo, if really altered, may have been aimed at exaggerating the flooding situation in North Korea to induce more international aid. The North, however, has not sent requests for aid to the International Federation of Red Cross or South Korea.

   The North Korea watchers said it's not the first time the KCNA has been suspected of altering images. In 2008, it was accused of trying to pass off old photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as fresh and added a picture of Kim to an image of soldiers.

   Meanwhile, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it is ready to dispatch a fact-finding mission to the flood-stricken areas of North Korea if the socialist country requests for its relief efforts, according to RFA on July 20.

   According to an RFA report, UNICEF said it will start relief efforts immediately if North Korea requests for support in relieving the flood damage. It said UNICEF has distributed emergency relief items, such as vitamins, tents and water purifiers, in all areas of North Korea for use by 100,000 people.

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