North Korea's Rising Waters

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In a country as secretive as North Korea, even natural disasters are shrouded in mystery. With international aid groups struggling to determine the extent of damage caused by July's torrential rains and floods, Seoul-based NGO Good Friends last week reported that the disaster left more than 54,700 dead or missing and 2.5 million homeless?a startling contradiction of Pyongyang's claim that "hundreds" were dead. Good Friends also warned that large areas of farmland were washed out, raising the specter of another famine, reminiscent of the one that cost the lives of as many as 2 million North Koreans in the mid-1990s. "It is a very horrific and devastating situation," says Good Friends' manager Erica Kang.

Other North Korea-watchers are skeptical of the estimates, but with accurate data hard to come by in the Hermit Kingdom, "we simply don't know and can't know" the extent of the fatalities, says Gerald Bourke, spokesman for the World Food Program in Beijing. Bourke has no doubt, though, that "there are a lot of hungry people" in North Korea right now.

Whatever its scope, international attention on the catastrophe could benefit dictator Kim Jong Il, whose neighbors have toughened their stance toward the Stalinist state since it test-fired seven ballistic missiles in July. Seoul, which suspended food shipments after the tests, quickly reversed course, promising $10 million in aid earlier this month. And while Washington has favored isolating the North to pressure Pyongyang into dismantling its nuclear weapons and missile programs, cutting off aid in the face of a humanitarian crisis could be difficult. "There will be more pressure on the U.S." to change course if the reports prove true, says David Steinberg, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University.

So far Washington hasn't resumed the food aid it suspended last year. Pyongyang remains equally defiant and shows no signs of returning to talks aimed at ending its nuclear program. Unknown millions of North Koreans might be struggling to survive, but Kim Jong Il is still sitting pretty.