Seoul_(dpa) _ A week of heavy rain has caused flooding in North Korea that has left hundreds of people dead or missing, state media reported Tuesday.
According to preliminary information from government officials, more than 30,000 houses in which more than 60,000 families lived have been destroyed or severely damaged, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Floods caused by storms that have raged since August 7 have swept away important railway stretches, roads and bridges and cut electrical and telephone service in many areas, the reports said.
Reports said the floods had caused "very great material damage so far."
Tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land have also been submerged, which was likely to worsen North Korea's chronic food shortages.
South Korea was considering whether to send emergency aid to its impoverished neighbour.
The loss of life and damage caused this time was apparently much greater than the floods North Korea experienced last year, a spokesman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul said.
It was not expected that the consequences of the floods would have an impact on a planned summit between North and South Korea at the end of August, the spokesman said.
The province worst hit has been Kangwon on North Korea's southern border, where about 20,000 houses have been flooded, the KCNA report said. The capital, Pyongyang, has also experienced flooding, they said.
According to Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Japan, about 500 millimetres of rain have fallen in North Korea in the past five days.
The International Committee of the Red Cross also reported flooding over large parts of the country as it appealed for donations to help the victims. It gave no estimates of flood victims or damage.
Red Cross staff in North Korea was working around the clock and had so far received 500 aid packets containing cooking utensils, blankets and drinking water to distribute to flooding victims, the group said.
Floods are not uncommon in the summer when monsoon-like rains hit the Korean peninsula, but experts said they are especially severe in the North because of deforestation.
In 2006, North Korea suffered another round of devastating flooding. Its government sought food and reconstruction aid from South Korea, which has sent rice and construction material to its totalitarian neighbour, which largely isolates itself from the rest of the world.
During last summer's disaster, the North Korean media also reported hundreds of flood victims, but the South Korean Buddhist aid group Good Friends said tens of thousands died or went missing. Its assertion remained unconfirmed. dpa dg ls wjh