Twin typhoons are renewing fears of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, AP reported. Typhoon Bolaven struck the North on Tuesday and Wednesday, submerging houses and roads, ruining thousands of acres of crops and triggering landslides that buried train tracks - scenes that are all too familiar in this disaster-prone nation. A second major storm, Typhoon Tembin, is forecast to dump more rain on the Korean Peninsula on Thursday and Friday. The storms come as North Korea is still recovering from earlier floods that killed more than 170 people and destroyed thousands of homes. That in turn followed a springtime drought that was the worst in a century in some areas. Foreign aid groups contacted Thursday said they are standing by in Pyongyang, but had not received requests for help from the North Korean government. They had little information on the extent of damage and were relying on reports from state media. The country's wariness toward the outside world, as well as a primitive rural road system, means aid may be slow arriving, if it is allowed to come at all. "These fresh storms, coming just a few weeks after the serious flooding - they do raise concerns because we see parts of the countryside battered again that have already been left in a vulnerable state," said Francis Markus, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in East Asia. Since June, tens of thousands have been left without clean water, electricity and access to food and other supplies. That leads to a risk of water-borne and respiratory diseases and malnutrition, aid workers say.
