Information: massive train wreck in North Korea

[zardoz]

By SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea - As many as 3,000 people were killed or injured Thursday when two trains carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas collided and exploded in a North Korean train station near the Chinese border, South Korean media reported.


The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had passed through the station as he returned from China hours earlier, South Korea (news - web sites)'s all-news cable channel, YTN, reported.


The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, YTN said, citing unidentified sources on the Chinese side of the border.


"The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted witnesses as saying. "Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the border with China, the agency said.


Yonhap, quoting witnesses in the Chinese city of Dandong on the border with the North, said the explosion occurred about 1 p.m. at Ryongchon. It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to Pyongyang. Ryongchon is about 12 miles from the Chinese border.


Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said her organization could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea (news - web sites).


The Defense Ministry likewise was not commenting.


"We are aware of the news reports, but we will not make any comments at this stage," said a spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.


YTN reported that the causalities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong were desperate to learn about their relatives.


Some of the injured were evacuated to hospitals in Dandong, it said.


Chinese and North Korean traders frequently cross the border at Dandong, a bustling industrial city on Yalu River.


North Korea's state-run news agency on Thursday confirmed that Kim had made a secretive trip to China on Monday through Wednesday, but carried no comments on the reported explosion.


The accident resembled a disaster in Iran on Feb. 18, when runaway train cars carrying fuel and industrial chemicals derailed in the town Neyshabur, setting off explosions that destroyed five villages. At least 200 people were killed.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Yes, Comcast customers had this story on the home page. Don't be looking for a whole lot more details on this crash.[swg]

We are only hearing about it because the fireball was probably seen on sattelite photos. It almost sounds like they run freight trains through passenger stations if this crispened that many.

[Anonymous]

what explosion? China and North Korea both report no accident happened. who said it happened? no one said it happened, someone's just speculating again [;)]

Seriously though, they are running an antiquated rail system with one main. the passenger platform lines were probably just sidings on the main. someone probably forgot to turn a switch and the frieght train went full bore into the passenger siding where the other train was waiting for the first to pass.

At least they're still running steam.

Jay

[Modelcar]

...Wonder what their steam resembles now....I rode behind steam over there over 50 years ago and it looked antiquated then....

[Anonymous]

N. Korea still runs steam engines? Now that I didn't know.

But dang, the explosion was seen from space? I said in another post; this is turning out to be a pretty brutal year for railroads.

It's kinda spooky to think that there are some nations so bitterly opposed to us that they would try to keep news of such a catastrophe away from us. And so shortly after the similar disaster in Iran.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by andyjay

N. Korea still runs steam engines? Now that I didn't know.

Yup and even china is still running the, see:


notice the bridge peirs here are of a modern design, yet they are using a 2-10-2 to pull that passenger train.


Jay

[TH&B]

There is enough info to prove there was a bad accident, but I'll bet you it will be less that 3000 fatalities although it will be high. I'll also bet that the rail cars carrieng fuel are unsafe in colision. But in a year from now we will have more real facts about this accident.

[corwinda]

Apparently the official North Korean explanation is that a couple carloads of dynamite contacted a live power line ...

[rixflix]

Why no outpouring of sympathy for the families in this thread?
If this had happened in Deshler wouldn't there be about 1800 postings of heartfelt sorrow by now?
The North Korean government (and is it ever!!!) has now asked for international help.
Is it OK now to lament the survivors' drastic change in prospect. Life-styles in that part of the world and maybe even in yours have been irrevocably altered.
I just had a little cry, excuse me.
Rick

[cstaats]

You need to feel sorry for the people kiled in this blast. It is not surprising they use steam. Labor and coal is cheap. They do not have environmental laws and remember this is a country that has been closed for so over 50 years . Does China still manufacture new steam locomotives?

[Anonymous]

Its somewhat ironic that N.K. asks for help with this disaster but when the disaster relief teams arrive they find no bodies and the town is basically abandoned. You have to wonder what the N.K. are hiding.......... and WHY they waited so long to ask for help from the outside world........

[edblysard]

You wont hear much, its a closed society, run by paranoid fanatics, populated by a people who have never know any other way.

Bet the Red Cross wont find much in the way of motive power any where near the site, the NK wouldnt want anyone to know what they use.

They had to ask, it helps make their goverment look like it is trying, and too many other countries know something happened, even if they don't know exactlly what.

We have played this same game before, only with the Soviets.
And the North Koreans make the Soviet Union look like a goodbuddy club.

You just thought life was cheap in some places...
had the explosion not been see by so many surveilance sattilites, all the NK would do is dig a big hole, shovel everything, bodies, trains and track into the hole, cover it up, and go on about their business like nothing happened.

But from what I saw on the news, whatever did explode had a heck of a big boom....one crater had to be close to twenty feet deep.

Ed

[Anonymous]

1. Our deepest sympathy to the families (whoever and how many--we'll likely never know). Life is extraordinarily cheap there, as Ed says, and you can be assured their press won't pass the sympathies along.

2. The official "explanation" makes little or no sense technically.

3. Unfortunately, any involved RR employees who survived most likely are no longer in that condition, so there may never be an adequate explanation.

4. It's amazing that they haven't yet found a way to blame us.

[METRO]

Well it seems the Chinese are starting to publish more on this so hopefully the veil won't be too deep.

As always it is tragic, and from the photos I've seen I was reminded of photos of WW2 bombing results. I do hope that those that died are at peace and that something will be done for their familes.

While I don't think the full story has even begun to come out yet, I do think we will know more eventually.

Thankfully here in the United States we have not had such devistating accedents (if it was an accedent) and that should be a pat on the back to those who work both for the railroads, and for the regulators, for keeping up saftey.