A train crash in the isolated Stalinist state of North Korea killed or injured up to 3,000 people yesterday when two fuel trains collided at a station, just hours after the country's leader, Mr Kim Jong-il, passed through on his way back from a trip to China.
"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris flew high into the sky," eye witnesses told the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
"Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the Chinese border, they said.
Officials in the Chinese city of Dandong, which borders North Korea, said the explosion took place around 1 p.m., nine hours after the reclusive Mr Kim's special train passed through on its way back to Pyongyang after a visit to China.
Two cargo trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at the station in Ryongchon. North Korea declared a state of emergency in the area.
South Korean authorities were tight-lipped, but an official from the defence ministry said: "We've obtained the information that there was a large explosion near Ryongchon station.
"We have yet to find out the cause of the incident, the kind of explosion and how many died."
The reclusive Mr Kim, leader of the world's only communist dynasty, always travels long distances by train because he is afraid of flying.
His custom-built armoured train reportedly has 21 carriages and carries on board a batch of specially flown-in Bordeaux wines, lobster tanks and two armoured Mercedes cars.
He was travelling back to Pyongyang from a meeting with Chinese leaders to discuss a standoff with the United States over the North's nuclear ambitions and economic reforms in the impoverished communist country.
The United States wants North Korea, which is on President Bush's list of "rogue states", to stop building nuclear weapons.
North Korea, famous for its Cold War-era style secrecy, has cut international telephone lines to the area to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap reported.
There were no reports of the crash on North Korean radio or television.
The explosion was initially picked up by South Korean military intelligence which routinely eavesdrops on North Korea.
South Korean television said there was widespread destruction and thousands of casualties but did not give a breakdown of deaths and injuries.
North Korea's official media broke their silence on Mr Kim's three-day trip to Beijing yesterday, suggesting Mr Kim had made it back to Pyongyang safely - without mentioning the explosion.
The border between North and South Korea is notoriously volatile.
At the 38th Parallel between the two Koreas, the strip of land strewn with barbed wire and filled with landmines that is the Cold War's last remaining border, there are often exchanges of fire from machine-gun nests.
South Korea's YTN television reported that the casualties included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and people in Dandong were desperate to learn about their relatives.
Chinese and North Korean traders frequently criss-cross the border.
