Red Cross: At least 54 dead

China urged North Korea to send the wounded to its hospitals across the border.
DANDONG, China (AP) -- The collision of two trains carrying explosives in North Korea killed at least 54 people and injured 1,249, the Red Cross said, while Chinese hospitals along the border with the North prepared for a possible influx of wounded.
The explosion occurred Thursday after the trains, which were carrying explosives similar to those used in mining, collided in the bustling town of Ryongchon, said John Sparrow, a Red Cross spokesman in Beijing. He said today he expected the death toll to rise.
The secretive North Korean government has remained silent on the disaster despite confirmation of the blast by the governments in Seoul and Beijing.
South Korean press reports earlier had said that as many as 3,000 people may have been killed or injured. But until the Red Cross figures were released, the only confirmed casualties were two Chinese deaths and 12 injuries. These figures came from China's official news agency Xinhua citing Beijing's embassy in Pyongyang.
The explosion leveled the train station, a school and apartments within a 500-yard radius in Ryongchon, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting Chinese witnesses. There were about 500 passengers and railway officials in the station at the time of the blast, it said.
Xinhua said the blast also knocked down more than 20 houses.
Conflicting reports
There were conflicting reports on the cause of the explosion.
South Korea's Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said today the explosion was triggered by a collision of fuel-laden trains. China's Xinhua news agency reported, without citing sources, that the explosion was caused by the leaking of ammonium nitrate in one of the trains. Ammonium nitrate is used in some explosives.
However, the Red Cross spokesman said today that the trains were carrying explosives and that at least 54 people were killed.
There was no sign in Dandong, the Chinese border city nearest to the crash site, of injured people being brought out of North Korea. But the city's three biggest hospitals were preparing for a possible surge of patients.
North Korea declared an emergency in the area while cutting off international telephone lines to prevent crash details from leaking out, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. The North's official KCNA news agency still had not mentioned the disaster by today, a full day later.
In Seoul, Unification Minister Jeong said China was urging North Korea to send the injured across the border to hospitals in China, but that Pyongyang was instead asking China to dispatch relief workers to the scene.
Officials in Dandong, about 12 miles away from Ryongchon, said they were prepared to provide medical and rescue assistance.
"There was an explosion and we believe there was a large number of people killed or injured," Jeong said. "For the moment, there is no official confirmation from North Korea, and we have difficulties confirming details."
The blast reportedly occurred nine hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il passed through the station on his way home from a three-day visit to China. But given the circumstances and the timing of the blast, Jeong said: "I don't think sabotage was involved."
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