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3,000 feared dead in N Korea rail blast

Government appears to have cut international phone lines to block news of the crash

AGENCIES, Seoul
Up to 3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded at a North Korean station yesterday, hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through. South Korea’s YTN televisionsaid.
YTN quoted witnesses in its report while South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which spoke of widespread destruction, also said there
were thousands of casualties. Neither Yonhap nor YTN gave a breakdown of deaths and injuries.
Yonhap quoted sources in the Chinese city of Dandong that borders the North as saying the explosion occurred around 1 p.m. (0400 GMT) - nine hours after Kim's special train was reported to have passed on its way back to Pyongyang aftera visit to China.
"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris
flew high into the sky, "Yonhap said, quoting the unidentified Chinese sources.
The sources said cargo trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryonchon station 50 km south of the border.
Yonhap also quoted a senior Defence Ministry official as saying the South's military - which eavesdrops on North Korea - had heard about the blast through "intelligence channels directed against the
North".
There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident But the explosion came after Kim met China's new leadership during a rare foreign visit to discuss the North's nuclear weapons plans and tentative economic reforms.
In a sign of the accident's magnitude, the North Koran government also cut international phone lines to prevent news of the crash from
leaking across its borders, Yonhap said, citing no sources. The North appears to have declared a type of emergency in the area.
"We have not yet received official information on the accidcnLWe are trying to confirm the report," a Unification Ministry spokesman said in Seoul. Other officials at various government agencies also had no information.
Yonhap said the sources said
3,000 feared
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people in Dandong were concerned their friends or relatives could have been caught up on the explosion. Traders from both sides criss-cross the border area.
A railway worker on the Chinese side of the Dandong border crossing told Reuters he had not heard of a blast and had seen no signs of any emergency effort under way.
"The closest station to here in North Korea is in Sinuiju (on the border), and I would have heard it. But I didn't hear anything," he said by telephone.
YTN reported that the casualities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong were desperately seeking information about relatives who may have been in the area. Chinese and North Korean traders frequently cross the border. Some of the injured were evacuated to hospitals in Dandong, it said.
North Korea's official media broke their silence on Kim's three-day trip to Beijing on Thursday -strongly suggesting Kim was safely back in Pyongyang -- but did not mention the explosion. Kim does not travel by air when he does venture outside North Korea.
Residents in Pyongyang said by telephone there was nothing unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military songs and music -- standard evening fare.