"3,000 dead" in North Korea train blast...

Daltonator · Post by **Daltonator** » 2004-04-22 10:42am

MSNBC.com wrote:N. Korea train collision triggers huge blast
State of emergency reported; thousands said dead, injured
BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 11:41 a.m. ET April 22, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean authorities declared a state of emergency Thursday in the region where two fuel trains collided and exploded, killing or injuring as many as 3,000 people, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The report did not give details, but said officials of the secretive North Korean government had put in place a "type of state of emergency" around the town of Ryongchon, near the Chinese border.

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.

South Korea's YTN television station reported that up to 3,000 people were killed or injured in the massive blast, which occurred when two freight trains collided in a North Korean station hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through.

Yonhap also reported thousands of casualties from the blast.

Neither media outlet provided a breakdown of deaths and injuries.

The Yonhap report quoted sources in the Chinese city of Dandong, which borders North Korea, as saying that trains carrying oil, gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryonchon station, southeast of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, which is about 12 miles from the Chinese border.

"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."

The news agency said the explosion occurred about 1 p.m., roughly nine hours after Kim passed through returning to Pyongyang from a trip to China - a rare foreign visit to discuss the North's nuclear weapons plans and economic reforms.

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.

Yang Jong-hwa, a spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said the agency could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea.

The Defense Ministry also said it had no confirmation of the disaster.

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 Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Edit: added article.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-04-22 10:49am

holy fucking shit! what king of morons run gasoline and CNG tanker cars through busy passenger stations? 3000 dead from colossal stupidity. goddamn.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-04-22 10:54am

Holy fucking christ. How dense must the population have been near that place for 3 grand worth of human casualty....shit...

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-04-22 10:55am

That's terrible. I feel so bad for those poor people.

Bertie Wooster · Post by **Bertie Wooster** » 2004-04-22 10:57am

North Korea is such a closed society, I doubt we'll ever find out how devastating the accident actually was.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-04-22 11:26am

FFUUCCKK

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2004-04-22 11:27am

Holy shit....

How long till they blame the US?

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-04-22 11:27am

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had passed through the station just hours earlier, according to the Yonhap news agency. "

Who wants to be he'll see it as a massive attack by the triplets against him or something?

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-04-22 11:28am

Already mentions of the might midget leader being in that area a few scant hours before hand. Let the conspiracy theories begin.

My condolences to the poor folk who fell victim to such tragic events.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-04-22 01:09pm

I'll be interested to see if the death of 3000 koreans will trigger the same news coverage in the west that it might if this happened in central station etc.

This is bad news, so many victims and all those families... sad stuff.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-04-22 01:29pm

damn, poor people....

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2004-04-22 02:11pm

Sharp-kun wrote: How long till they blame the US?

that's a scary thought. Kim Jong Il is quite paranoid and could very well try and pin this on the US, Japan or South Korea.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2004-04-22 02:15pm

I think, we will never know what really happend. Hell, not even the Chinese really know what happend, and that says it all.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-04-22 02:40pm

Jon wrote:I'll be interested to see if the death of 3000 koreans will trigger the same news coverage in the west that it might if this happened in central station etc.

You also have to consider that North Korea is a very closed and isolated society. Access to the accident site by journalists would be extremely limited, if not nonexistant, and thus it will not be as big a story as if it happened in some Western country, or even Russia or China.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-04-22 03:42pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had passed through the station just hours earlier, according to the Yonhap news agency. "

Who wants to be he'll see it as a massive attack by the triplets against him or something?

He probably staged the whole thing in an attempt to get his nation into the record books... well at least I wouldn't put such an insane plan past him.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-04-22 03:53pm

I don't think so. I have it on pretty good authority (my uncle and a friend of his who work in the Finnish foreign ministry and have been to NK several times and actually talked to some NK officials who went off the record) that the ones calling the shots there are Kim Jong Il's highest generals and party officials, about a dozen or so. They keep the little tinpot dictator doped up to the eyeballs and repeating scripted statements. He's nothing but a figurehead so these military officers and a select few others can be the shadow power behind the throne. It isn't even a very farfetched scenario, do you people seriously think that somebody like Kim Jong Il could really keep a stranglehold like that on the whole country just by himself?

Edi

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-04-22 04:13pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Chris OFarrell wrote:"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had passed through the station just hours earlier, according to the Yonhap news agency. "

Who wants to be he'll see it as a massive attack by the triplets against him or something?
He probably staged the whole thing in an attempt to get his nation into the record books... well at least I wouldn't put such an insane plan past him.

I just had a flash,what if Kimmy heard there were triplets born where this his happened,and the whole tragey was done by him to get rid of X amount of triplets born.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-04-22 04:24pm

Edi wrote:They keep the little tinpot dictator doped up to the eyeballs and repeating scripted statements.

Generals like stability and job security. North Korea's actions the last
few years have NOT been conducive to international stability.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-04-22 04:27pm

From another board, I've learned that:

1.) That railway junction was very quiet, and not in a heavily populated area.

2.) Trains in North Korea have to travel at slow speeds due
to power shortages in the country.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-04-22 04:30pm

If this is accurate, then the same number died there as did in the WTC incident. Puts it into perspective, but then we may never see what it was like unlike that other train crash in Turkey or Iran.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-04-22 06:28pm

Edi wrote:I don't think so. I have it on pretty good authority (my uncle and a friend of his who work in the Finnish foreign ministry and have been to NK several times and actually talked to some NK officials who went off the record) that the ones calling the shots there are Kim Jong Il's highest generals and party officials, about a dozen or so. They keep the little tinpot dictator doped up to the eyeballs and repeating scripted statements. He's nothing but a figurehead so these military officers and a select few others can be the shadow power behind the throne. It isn't even a very farfetched scenario, do you people seriously think that somebody like Kim Jong Il could really keep a stranglehold like that on the whole country just by himself?

Edi

Sounds like Star Trek TOS "Patterns of Force" to me.

What about people who have supposedly visited Kim Jong Il and talked to him, describing him as an intelligent and engaging man?

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2004-04-22 09:22pm

Chris OFarrell

Who wants to be he'll see it as a massive attack by the triplets against him or something?

Who are the triplets? Is that a reference to S Korea, Japan and the U.S?

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2004-04-22 09:43pm

frigidmagi wrote:Chris OFarrell
Who wants to be he'll see it as a massive attack by the triplets against him or something?
Who are the triplets? Is that a reference to S Korea, Japan and the U.S?

No he believes some prophecy how triplets will overthrow him so all triplets get brainwashed.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-04-22 11:26pm

....

You've got to me kidding me.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2004-04-22 11:26pm

You think someone will post satellite pictures of the site ?

I'm sure at least one of the western countries is gonna take a look.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

"3,000 dead" in North Korea train blast...

"3,000 dead" in North Korea train blast...

Huh?

Re: Huh?