N. Koreans keep crash secret

SEOUL, South Korea -- Two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near the Chinese border Thursday, igniting a deafening explosion that rained debris for more than 10 miles around, South Korean media said. As many as 3,000 people might have been killed or injured, according to the reports.

The secretive communist government in Pyongyang declared an emergency in the area while cutting off international telephone lines to prevent details of the crash from leaking out, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. The North's official KCNA news agency still had not mentioned the disaster earlier today, more than 20 hours after the blast.

South Korea's Defense Ministry confirmed today that there was an explosion at Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from China, but could not provide further details. "All we know is that there was a large explosion," a ministry spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had quietly passed by rail through the station as he returned from China before dawn some nine hours earlier. It was not clear what caused the crash, or if it was related to Kim's journey.

But a South Korean official, quoted on condition of anonymity by South Korea's all-news cable channel, YTN, said it appeared to be an accident.

The collision reportedly took place about 1 p.m. One train was carrying oil and the second had liquefied petroleum gas, media reported.

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

Cho Sung-dae, a Yonhap correspondent in Beijing, said his reports were based on residents in the Chinese border city of Dandong who talked with their relatives in Ryongchon.

They described a massive explosion involving a large number of casualties but could not give figures, Cho said. Cho also said North Korean authorities appeared to shut down the border with China after the incident.

Subsequent attempts by his Chinese sources to contact people in Ryongchon failed because the phone lines apparently had been severed.

YTN and Yonhap reported that the number killed or injured could reach 3,000. Both organizations said their casualty counts came from South Korean government sources, whom they declined to further identify.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official confirmed "a large explosion near Ryongchon station," Yonhap reported. "We have yet to find out the cause of the incident, the kind of explosion and how many died," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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. The Defense Ministry could not comment, and the Foreign Ministry could immediately be reached.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration had no information on the collision.

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

North Korea is one of the world's most isolated countries and rarely allows visits by outside journalists. News events within its borders are difficult to confirm independently.

The communist country's infrastructure is dilapidated and accident-prone. Its passenger cars are usually packed with people, and defectors say trains are seldom punctual and frequently break down.

Sometimes, trains are stranded for hours at stations until their electricity supply is restored enabling them to continue, some defectors say.

The trunk line on which Thursday's accident reportedly occurred, the main rail link between China and North Korea, was first laid during the Japanese occupation more than 60 years ago.