VARIOUS: STILL RECOVERING FROM TYPHOON OLGA, HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION RUN RIFE IN THE VILLAGES OF NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA

Record ID: 451575

  • Title: VARIOUS: STILL RECOVERING FROM TYPHOON OLGA, HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION RUN RIFE IN THE VILLAGES OF NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA
  • Date: 24th August 1999
  • Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (AUGUST 24, 1999) (REUTERS) SLV KATHI ZELLWEGER, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, CARITAS HONG KONG, WALKING NEAR CANAL IN BEIJING SV (SOUNDBITE) (English) KATHI ZELLWEGER, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, CARITAS HONG KONG SAYING: "In North Korea, every hectare of arable land has to produce food for 11 people, so that means 32,000 hectares is about 350,000 tons of food, so even if the floods are only in certain areas, localised, it still will have an impact on next year's food supply in such a fragile situation." CU CARITAS SIGN SV (SOUNDBITE) (English) ZELLWEGER SAYING: "Having travelled very extensively on this trip from the south to the north of the country is that there are a lot of people sitting, squatting and even lying along the roadside utterly exhausted, tired, they just can't carry on working so hard or they have a hard time to get back home with the food they have tried to get from the mountains or from relatives in the countryside, so I would say even the adult population looks not very well."
  • Embargoed: 8th September 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS, NORTH KOREA/ BEIJING, CHINA
  • City:
  • Country: Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
  • Topics: Disasters,Environment,General,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA20MQX26EOH8KT30GPL4NYLFJO
  • Story Text: An aid agency working in North Korea has painted a bleak picture of life there.
    Despite escaping major flood damage, agencies say that crop yields are still too low to feed the country, with hunger and malnutrition rife.
    Villagers in southern North Korea are still recovering from the aftermath of Typhoon Olga, which battered North Korea's sensitive grain-growing region, along with many parts of the Korean peninsular, in early August.
    The typhoon destroyed houses, inundated sensitive rice paddies and killed scores in the area known as North Korea's breadbasket.
    Government figures the damage in that area at some 32,000 hectares.
    And while that amount of land may be a drop in the ocean for most developed nations, in North Korea, where every arable acre is essential to help ease a four-year famine, the loss is significant, say aid agency officials.
    While rice crop estimates may be affected, farmers told aid agency officials that while maize crop yields will likely be the same as last year, a crop of potatoes grown with imported seeds showed promise.
    Aid agencies hope the potatoes will cover some of the food shortfall prior to the 1999 harvest.But agencies like Caritas remain concerned that yields in North Korea remain low and the country is still not able to feed itself.
    "In North Korea, every hectare of arable land has to produce food for 11 people, so that means 32 thousand hectares - (which) is about 350 thousand tons of food - (lost), so even if the floods are only in certain areas, localised, it still will have an impact on next year's food supply in such a fragile situation," said Kathi Zellweger, Director of International Cooperation for Caritas Hong Kong.
    Despite international efforts to provide food to the isolated country, the four-year-long food shortages continue to take their toll.Adults in the countryside continue to show signs of exhaustion as a result of food deprivation, said Zellweger, while pregnant mothers are another sector of the population that remains at risk.
    Pregnant women have trouble putting on enough weight to produce healthy children, she said.Babies are often only 2.5 to 2.7 kilogrammes, only just above dangerously low weight levels, said Zellweger, who said she was alarmed to find that she was often speaking to women who didn't look at all pregnant, only to discover they were a long way into their pregnancies.
    A lack of nutrition during pregnancy and after birth has affected thousands of North Korean children.Children in creches visited by aid officials are routinely found to be underweight and undersized.Few women at hospitals and clinics visited by the officials were able to breast-feed their babies.
    The team of Caritas officials drove from the south to north of the country in a three-week-long visit to monitor food aid distribution and assess food aid needs.
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