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China-Japan-Koreas
Train collision in N. Korea reportedly causes around 3,000 casualties
2004-04-23
A redo of yesterday's article...
The South Korean government has confirmed that two trains loaded with oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) collided in the Ryongchon railway station near the border of North Korea and China at around 1 p.m. on April 22, killing or injuring as many as 3,000 people, according a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Ministry further disclosed that one Chinese citizen was killed and two were severally injured in the explosion.
Cargo's been reported as other substances, to include dynamite and gunpowder for use in digging a canal...
Additionally, 10 Chinese citizens living in North Korea are believed to have suffered minor injuries in the explosion. Five of them are receiving medical treatment in a local hospital, while the other five have been already been released from medial facilities. The two seriously injured Chinese nationals are being treated in a different hospital in Sinjiuju. Nicholas Bonner, Director of Koryo Tours, which has specialized in travel to North Korea since 1993, told Interfax that the train line is not blocked, as the evening train from Pyonyang had arrived in Beijing. "I can only speculate, but it seems that the explosion was slightly off the main track," Bonner told Interfax, "we have been told there is still train travel into North Korea."
Curious! Big blast on railway line, but trains still running.
The situation is still confused, as "the border (between China and North Korea) may have been closed," said a checkpoint official in Dandong when contacted by Interfax. "The explosion happened beyond Siniuju. It was a distance from the bridge (crossing the Yalu river), so we didn’t manage to hear anything," he added.
You can hear a big blast a long way off.
"I heard nothing! No-thing! Tell them, Hogan!"
Officials from China’s Embassy in Pyongyang held an emergent meeting with their counterparts from the North Korea Foreign Ministry late night on Thursday, hours after the two trains collided at one in the afternoon, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Chinese Embassy is ready to provide first aid to North Korea, added the statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Chinese checkpoint official would not confirm whether any injured people had been sent in through the bridge following the explosion, defining it as "secret information." The Chinese state media, quoting South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, said the collision had triggered a massive explosion and fire, leaving a train station in ruins. Still pictures taken from TV were printed by the Beijing based Chinese newspaper Xin Jing Bao, which showed firemen spraying water into a smoldering train compartment.
Curiouser still! mixing freight and passenger carriages on the same train is not a common practice especially with hazardous cargoes.
According to South Korea’s cable television YTN, the explosion occurred nine hours after the heavily armed train of North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong-il passed the station.
Its the norm when a dictator dies that everyone says he’s alive and well until the succession has been arranged or fought over.
"The Ryongchon train station has turned into ruins after the explosion, as if it had been heavily bombed. The debris from the blast flew high into the sky, with some even falling down into Siniuju, on the border between China and North Korea," a witness told Yonhap.
As I pointed out yesterday, the winds are blowing strongly from the North and debris would not be blown into China.
An anonymous spokesman from South Korea’s Defense Ministry said, "we have noticed these news reports, but we cannot make any comment on this at the present stage."
My read on this is that Kimmie was boomed and may well be dead.
We can only hope. There're a lot of coincidences, and a lot of misinformation, but that could be because of all the commies involved. I wouldn't get my hopes up...
Posted by:Phil B

#28  I was suspicious at first that this was a small nuclear blast, with the debris raining down in all directions. If NK allows foreign aid agencies to assist with disaster cleanup, I'm sure more than a few will be checking for radiation at the site.
Posted by: Tresho   2004-04-23 9:42:24 PM  

#27  Excellent OR excellent for Waltzing Matilda always makes me sad.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-04-23 4:10:22 PM  

#26  Oh, its better than that. The "Deal Leader" Travels by train. Unbeliveable! Now, think about that for a second. If you want to assassinate someone, what do you need? Predictability and rigidity in the target. You need to know where he's going to be and when, and you need to know that once the target is on a specific route, that the route is not flexible. A train is an assassins dream.

This "genius" has chosen the only form of transportation where one can predict with extreme accuracy the route that will be taken. Train tracks are pretty reliably in place months prior to the trip. In a country with NO infrastructure, and only three rail lines coming out of China, One can guess if the 'dear leader' is in china, hes going to come back into NKOR via train. Now we know he's only got three routes into his country.

Once you know the 'dear leader' is on board the train in beijing, there are any number of methods that can be used, with great precision, to remove the train from its tracks.

Add to that, the "deal Leader has standing orders that ALL other train traffic is off the routes while he is in movement, and you get an even better scenario, ANY moving train is likely to contain your target, you dont even have to look hard for that.

Now, check out the path of that train route from youngchen to pyongyang - its runs right next to the coast! you don't think a few boys in the "rubber boat yacht club" couldnt land in the middle of the night and take out a small bridge at just the right time? Perhaps trigger a convieneint landslide?


How this moron has survived this long is beyond me.
Posted by: Frank Martin   2004-04-23 1:30:49 PM  

#25  Lots of updates of this story at:

http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/

Given the attention to safety in the NKor transportation system you have to wonder how many NKor nuke scientists have quietly died of radiation poisening in the past few years.
Posted by: mhw   2004-04-23 1:28:10 PM  

#24  Funeral Hymn for Kim Jong-Il
Sung to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda":

Once a sad short man rode inside his special train,
To see the only friends that he thought he had,
And he sadly said, when he wa-as heading home,
“How come that nobody really likes me?”
Peaceful Rynchon, peaceful Rynchon
Went ka-boom as he was riding through
And his ghost may be heard as he goes to the underworld,
"Damn the Chinese; the bastards set me up!"




Posted by: Oge_Retla_2004   2004-04-23 1:28:06 PM  

#23  We have been told that the accident was caused by live electrical wire getting in contact with dynamite. . .

Um - Electrical wires - dynamite - passing fuel train - I KNOW! IT's THE KEYSTONE COPS back after an 80 year hiatus!

Posted by: Anonymous4052   2004-04-23 1:11:18 PM  

#22  Maybe Kimmie make his own earthquake for the aid.

/alcoa
Posted by: Shipman   2004-04-23 1:07:04 PM  

#21  Asking for outside help is not Kimmie's M.O. ... curiouser and curiouser.
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2004-04-23 12:16:20 PM  

#20  Fox just announced, the NK is asking for international help! Hummmmmm ... bet the CIA would be more than willing to help
Posted by: Sherry   2004-04-23 11:33:40 AM  

#19  I'm not an expert on explosives, but I wasn't aware that passing an electric current through Dynamite or Ammonium Nitrate would detonate it.
Posted by: Phil B   2004-04-23 11:19:32 AM  

#18  Your one stop shopping source on NKOR and the big-badda-boom event:

http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/

Pictures - info - satellite info. best source so far
Posted by: Frank Martin   2004-04-23 11:07:31 AM  

#17  The Independent (UK) is now reporting that one of the trains "may" have been carrying ammonium nitrate.

Since everybody else is floating guesswork, I'll add my .02 to the pile:

Tanker cars filled with rocket fuel or rocket fuel components.

The NorKs are gearing up before the AB Laser and and our ABM land-based systems become operational.
Posted by: mrp   2004-04-23 11:06:40 AM  

#16  If we're lucky and NK's designated gourmand, Dear Leader Kim, was blasted off this mortal coil, how long will it take for the black helicopter crowd to blame this on Dick Cheney? After all, he did visit the Chinese just before they directed Kim the Pudgy to take the train to Beijing. And isn't this the second major train explosion in the last few weeks? As muck4doo would say, "Chaney and the CIA did it."
Posted by: Random thoughts   2004-04-23 11:00:57 AM  

#15  After some reflection, I think Phil B.has it right. I think the Dear Leader has been sent on to join the Great Leader in that great Stalinist paradise in the sky and that the other capos are meeting to see who takes over. Given the general lack of quality and preparation in the Dear Leader's progeny, that meeting could take a long time.
Posted by: RWV   2004-04-23 10:52:40 AM  

#14  link

"We have been told that the accident was caused by live electrical wire getting in contact with dynamite."

Well - that's one way to set the stuff off.
Posted by: Rawsnacks   2004-04-23 10:43:39 AM  

#13  Damn. RWV's comment came up as i posted shouls've refreshed the page before posting , sorry.
Posted by: Evert Visser in NL   2004-04-23 10:39:39 AM  

#12  I agree R.C. the passing of the train carrying the great dictator probably caused other trains to be halted or sidetracked, most likely some aparatchick F****** up bigtime in trying to get everything back on track.
Posted by: Evert Visser in NL   2004-04-23 10:36:58 AM  

#11  Totalitarian systems aren't that good at dealing with safety issues.

Commies: "Safety?? We don't need no steenkeeng safety!"
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-04-23 10:28:18 AM  

#10  Some of the spin coming from China is that this was an accident that happened as NK was trying to restart rail traffic after the Dear Leader's China excursion. Supposedly when his train is on the track, all the rest are on sidings.

The casualty spin is bizarre. How do you flatten 1,850 homes and seriously damage 6,350 more and only kill 52, no 150, no some other number of people? I guess the only damage control the NorKs are good at is propaganda. As the rubble is cleared the number will move into the thousands.
Posted by: RWV   2004-04-23 10:16:45 AM  

#9  Who did this and why?

Odds are pretty good it's an accident. Totalitarian systems aren't that good at dealing with safety issues.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-04-23 9:50:29 AM  

#8  Maybe it's just me, but this is the strangest and one of the most horrible stories I've heard in a while (and since 9/11, they've been pretty weird and bad).
Who did this and why?
Posted by: Jen   2004-04-23 9:12:58 AM  

#7  Update from BBC: In the first independent account, the Red Cross said the train blast killed at least 54 people and injured 1,200. But diplomatic sources in Pyongyang say the figure is much higher, as reports indicate the blast happened when two wagons of dynamite hit a live wire. A Red Cross team sent to the scene has reported that 1,850 homes have been flattened and 6,350 seriously damaged. The blast was initially thought to have been caused by two trains colliding. But North Korean government sources have been quoted as saying it was triggered by an electric wire dropping on to two wagons loaded with dynamite. South Korean officials say it appears to have been an accident and not linked to Mr Kim's trip. However, there have been suggestions that trains were held up while Mr Kim's train passed through, causing problems later.

Picture at BBC shows houses clustered next to tracks, death toll will be high. NK trains are electricly powered, so that could be line mentioned. Didn't know electricity alone could set off dynamite, unless they had detonators in same car.
Posted by: Steve   2004-04-23 8:57:20 AM  

#6  There are now reports that the trains carried explosives not petrochemicals. Shades of Iran.
Posted by: Lux   2004-04-23 8:22:36 AM  

#5  raptor, the report I read said it was at the BBC.
Posted by: Jen   2004-04-23 7:59:51 AM  

#4  Barbara,I checked out NASA's website yesterday looking for satalite photos of the explosion,nada.That was the only place I could think of.
Posted by: raptor   2004-04-23 7:15:30 AM  

#3  Wow! Those North Koreans really managed to get the most out of their old outdated Iranian trainbomb plans.
Posted by: Zenster   2004-04-23 5:00:59 AM  

#2  Kim does ride the train...and he'd just come back from China.
So what this a hit on him?
Posted by: Jen   2004-04-23 3:40:24 AM  

#1  If I recall correctly, Kimmie doesn't fly. Can't fly. Can't take the train. What's a dictator to do?!?
Posted by: Rafael   2004-04-23 3:22:07 AM  

00:00