Train Carrying Fuel Explodes in North Korea

A North Korean cargo train carrying fuel from China was involved in a devastating explosion Thursday, reportedly causing thousands of deaths and injuries, and sending plumes of smoke and ash wafting across the Chinese border.

The blast took place near the North Korean town of Ryongchon -- about 10 miles from the Chinese border -- just nine hours after an armored luxury train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Il passed on the same route. But there were no immediate indications here that it was an assassination attempt or the result of a bottleneck related to Kim’s trip.

“We think it is an accident, but we are watching and examining,” said a South Korean government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A South Korean television station reported up to 3,000 deaths in the accident. The government official could not confirm the figure but said he believed the accident was “quite big.”

The accident reportedly occurred about 2 p.m. Hours later, as night fell, a huge fire raging out of control was clearly visible in satellite images distributed by South Korean television.

In characteristic secrecy for which North Korea is famous, the accident was not reported by the nation’s media. Phone lines in that part of the country were inoperative, presumably for security reasons.

Information is often sketchy in the immediate aftermath of a major accident anywhere, but North Korea’s lid on information led to sharply conflicting reports, making accounts of the accident akin to a wilderness of mirrors.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on its website today that the accident killed one Chinese resident in the area, injured 12 and leveled 20 homes in Ryongchon.

In Dandong, the Chinese city on the Yalu River that the cargo train had passed shortly before the explosion, some residents said there was a head-on collision with a passenger train.

Others said that the fuel train alone was involved in the accident and had mysteriously burst into flames on a bridge between Ryongchon and the larger North Korean city of Sinuiju.

“There are lots of rumors flying about,” said a travel agent in Dandong who did not wish to be quoted by name.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a witness as saying, “The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded.”

Dandong residents said that they could see a thin plume of smoke rising from the area around the scene of the accident and that in some places ash had drifted across the Yalu, which separates North Korea and China.

According to some reports, North Korea requested emergency medical assistance from China and intended to evacuate the injured to Dandong.

“We just received a notice to prepare to aid the injured, but so far it’s not clear whether there are any casualties in the Dandong hospitals,” said Wang Je, head of the Dandong Health Bureau.

The United States and South Korea were also said to be offering assistance to North Korea.

China is the largest supplier of fuel oil to North Korea, its impoverished communist ally, and the tanker trains pass regularly through Dandong over a bridge across the river to Sinuiju. The raw fuel oil is processed in various plants in Ryongchon and in nearby Pihyon County, according to North Korean defectors living in Seoul.

“This is an important industrial area, so a lot of fuel is processed around Ryongchon,” said Cho Myong Chol, a North Korean defector and prominent economist based in Seoul.

Cho said it was conceivable that there were large numbers of casualties if a passenger train was involved because these trains tend to be jampacked, with travelers standing in the aisles and even riding on tops of cars. He also said that there was only one railroad track along that line, so the timetables of trains traveling in opposite directions must be carefully coordinated.

“The timetable is very complicated, so if somebody makes a mistake there can be a huge accident,” Cho said. “The rail system in North Korea is also very old and dilapidated, so that could have been the problem.”

An explosion on a train carrying gunpowder in 1978 is believed to have caused a fire that killed up to 2,000 people in the city of Yongsong, in North Korea’s South Hamgyong province, Cho said. Hundreds also were killed in a train derailment in 1985, he said.

“Any news of these accidents is never announced. They try to deal with it quietly at a provincial level,” Cho said.

Kim, the North Korean leader, had returned early Thursday from a trip to Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Hu Jintao to discuss the North Korean nuclear weapons standoff and economic issues.

The trip was shrouded in secrecy, with the Chinese and North Korean governments only acknowledging its existence after Kim left Beijing.

Demick reported from Seoul and Magnier from Beijing. Yin Lijin of The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.