Ryongchon disaster
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The Ryongchŏn disaster was a train disaster that occurred in the town of Ryongchŏn, North Korea near the border with China on April 22, 2004.
The disaster occurred when a flammable cargo exploded at the railway station at about 1300 local time (0400 GMT). The news was broken by South Korean media outlets, which reported that up to 3,000 people had been killed or injured in the blast and subsequent fires. The North Korean government declared a state of emergency in the region, but little information about the accident has been made public by the notoriously secretive government. Shortly after the accident the North Korean government cut telephone lines to the rest of the world (an action correspondents attributed either to a desire to inhibit foreign reporting or to prevent their own population from learning unfavourable news about the accident).
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[edit] Effects of the disaster
The Red Cross was allowed into the area, in an unusual concession from the North Korean authorities, becoming the only outside agency to see the disaster area. According to the agency, 54 people were killed and 1,249 were injured in the disaster. A wide area was reported to have been affected, with some airborne debris reportedly falling across the border in China. (Satellite pictures published by the BBC purported to show widespread damage in the town, but these were later retracted—they actually show the town from an earlier date, and the strong black-white contrast was mis-interpreted [1].) The Red Cross reported that 1,850 houses had been flattened and another 6,350 had been damaged or partially destroyed. A school, the railway station, and several apartment blocks were also said to have been razed to the ground.
On April 23, the United Nations received an appeal for international aid from North Korea's government. The next day, a few journalists were allowed into the country to report on the disaster.
[edit] How and why the accident happened
The cause and nature of the accident have been the subject of considerable confusion, with several different accounts being reported.
[edit] How the disaster happened
There are several different accounts of what occurred:
- It was initially reported that the explosion was the result of a collision between two trains carrying gasoline (petrol) and liquified petroleum gas, possibly donated by China to alleviate the ongoing North Korean fuel shortage.
- Diplomats and aid workers in North Korea later suggested that the explosion took place when explosive materials (possibly dynamite or some form of gunpowder) were being shunted in rail cars, possibly being triggered by a collision with a live electric power cable. This is corroborated by reports by North Korean officials to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, and by government sources to Japan's Kyodo news service. The material was said to be intended for use in canal construction.
- The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that there had been a leak of ammonium nitrate, a substance used in some explosives, as a fertilizer, and in rocket fuel.
KCNA, the state news service, apparently confirmed the Xinhua report by stating the incident was "due to the electrical contact caused by carelessness during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium-nitrate fertilizer and tank wagons."
Reading between the lines, one conclusion is that an explosive made from ammonium nitrate was being transported by rail. Under this explanation, the explosive (maybe a form of ammonium nitrate fuel oil, or ANFO) was probably intended for canal construction, and various officials must have confused this with other explosives and pure fertilizer in their differing accounts.
If that is the case, the question of how the explosion was started remains, as these explosives need a significant initiation before they will explode, usually achieved with other explosives and a detonator. However, there have been several major events where ammonium nitrate has ignited and exploded while being handled and transported. For instance, the Texas City disaster of 1947 involved an explosion of 7,000 tonnes of the substance after it started on fire.
[edit] Why the disaster happened
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il passed through the station several hours before the explosion as he returned from a secretive meeting in China. It was suggested that the explosion might have been an assassination attempt, but this was treated with widespread skepticism. A popular conjecture is that one of the trains involved was carrying fuel from China, possibly a shipment that Kim had requested. If the incident did involve a train collision, it has been suggested that the cause of the accident may have been a miscommunication related to the changes in train timetables due to Kim Jong-il's itinerary.
Other observers have suggested that the poor state of North Korea's railway system may have contributed to the disaster. It accounts for about 90% of freight transportation, with a lack of fuel forcing most trucks and other vehicles off the road. The railroad, built by the Japanese forces that occupied Korea during World War II, is reported to be in poor repair, with aged rollingstock running no faster than 40 mph or 65 km/h (in part due to poor electrical supply, again caused by the country's fuel shortage).
[edit] North Korean government response
The unusually frank admission of the accident by North Korean government might have been a sign of a thaw in the grip of the bureaucratic communist government on the impoverished country. When the country suffered droughts in the early 1990s, bureaucratic inertia and reluctance to admit failure led to delays in requests for foreign aid and the deaths of millions from the famine.
