A state of emergency was declared in North Korea tonight after two trains carrying highly inflammable freight collided and exploded, killing or injuring up to 3,000 people.
The trains, carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas, crashed in a station near the Chinese border, South Korean media reported.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had passed through the station as he returned to his secretive Marxist state from China hours earlier.
The number killed or injured could reach 3,000, South Korea's all-news cable channel, YTN, reported, citing unidentified sources on the Chinese side of the border.
"The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded," witnesses told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju," a North Korean town on the border with China, it said.
Yonhap said the explosion occurred at Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from the Chinese border and a "sort of state of emergency" had been declared in the region. It said Kim passed through nine hours earlier, returning to his capital, Pyongyang.
North Korea's state-run news agency today confirmed that Kim had made a secretive trip to China this week but carried no comments on the explosion. However, international telephone lines to the area appear to have been cut to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added.
Sources said trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryongchon station ten miles south of the Yalu river border near the Yellow Sea. There were rumours the fuel was a gift from China to Kim and his energy-starved country, Yonhap said.
There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident.
The North's creaking medical system would be hard pressed to cope with a large number of casualties, but there was no word any international agency or neigbouring country had been asked for help.
The United States, which runs the largest intelligence gathering operation on the North, said it had no confirmation of the blast. "I don't think we know enough about the situation yet to know whether there's any assistance that we have that might be necessary," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
A spokeswoman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said her organisation could not immediately confirm the reports. The ministry is in charge of relations with North Korea. The Defence Ministry likewise was not commenting.
YTN reported that the causalities included Chinese living in the North Korean border region, and that Chinese in Dandong - a bustling industrial city on Yalu River - were desperate to learn about their relatives. Some of the injured were evacuated to hospitals in Dandong, it said.
Chinese and North Korean traders frequently cross the border at Dandong.