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

Record ID: 451576

  • 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) SV (SOUNDBITE) (English) KATHI ZELLWEGER, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, CARITAS HONG KONG, SAYING: "I wasn't even aware I was speaking to a pregnant woman. She didn't show that she was pregnant so the weight gain during pregnancy is very, very low - five to seven kilos I was told - this is a big, big worry because if a child is born with a birth-weight of of 2.5 or even less kilos, that child will never catch up and will always have problems in his or her development."
  • 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: LVAF4R8ZY4MAGRD7VE998W2J6GLF
  • 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.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register