S. Korean Think Tank Says Famine LIkely In North After This Year's Devastating Floods - Reuters

[hatrack]

SEOUL - Destitute North Korea will likely be pushed into famine due to devastating floods this year that wiped out crops and ruined farm land, a South Korean state-run think-tank said on Thursday.

"The North's food inventory has almost hit the bottom, so unless there's an extraordinary measure to stabilise supply, there may be a situation next year similar to the late 1990s," a study by the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) said. Famine in the late 1990s brought about by flooding, drought and years of mismanagement in the farm sector killed as many as 10 percent of the North's 22 million people, according to some estimates.

The KREI study said North Korea will run about 1.4 million tonnes short of the food needed to feed its people and estimated damage to its farming sector at more than US$275 million.

North Korea has said flooding in August was some of the worst to hit the country. It killed at least 600 people, left more than 300,000 homeless, destroyed thousands of buildings and wiped out more than 11 percent of its farm land, its official media said.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44903/story.htm

[lovuian]

1. They have a huge army

hungry people make for a dangerous situation

[GeminiProgressive]

2. In the same article

there are also those who think the North Koreans have increased food production enough so that they will not have a famine but widespread malnutrition. I hope neither is the case...The people of that country have been through enough already.