Article

2004-04-23 China-Japan-Koreas

Train collision in N. Korea reportedly causes around 3,000 casualties

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Posted by Phil B 2004-04-23 3:06:02 AM|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 3:22:07 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-04-23 3:40:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#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 Those North Koreans really managed to get the most out of their old outdated Iranian trainbomb plans.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|| 2004-04-23 5:00:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 7:15:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 raptor, the report I read said it was at the BBC.

Posted by Jen 2004-04-23 7:59:51 AM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-04-23 7:59:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 8:22:36 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 8:57:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-04-23 9:12:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2004-04-23 9:50:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 10:16:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 10:28:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://srv.fotopages.com/?o=867551&t=2] 2004-04-23 10:36:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| [http://srv.fotopages.com/?o=867551&t=2] 2004-04-23 10:39:39 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 10:43:39 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 10:52:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 11:00:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 11:06:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 11:07:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 11:19:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 11:33:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 12:16:20 PM|| Front Page Top

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

/alcoa

Posted by Shipman 2004-04-23 1:07:04 PM|| 2004-04-23 1:07:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 1:11:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#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,
âHow come that nobody really likes me?â
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|| 2004-04-23 1:28:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 1:28:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 1:30:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Excellent OR excellent for Waltzing Matilda always makes me sad.

Posted by Shipman 2004-04-23 4:10:22 PM|| 2004-04-23 4:10:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2004-04-23 9:42:24 PM|| Front Page Top

11:42 Anonymous4659
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