Several regions have been badly affected by torrential rain and
flooding, and tens of thousands of people are believed to have been
forced to leave their homes.
But Jerome Sauvage, the UN Development Program's resident coordinator in Pyongyang says they won't know for sure what they are dealing with until they've completed their own on-site assessments.
Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speaker: Jérome Sauvage, UN Development Program's Resident Coordinator in North Korea
But Jerome Sauvage, the UN Development Program's resident coordinator in Pyongyang says they won't know for sure what they are dealing with until they've completed their own on-site assessments.
Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speaker: Jérome Sauvage, UN Development Program's Resident Coordinator in North Korea
SAUVAGE:
On the whole it's like a series of events. The first one only was the
Khanun typhoon, after that we've had a succession of very heavy rains.
What we're seeing is several provinces quite severely affected, and it
is possible that a number of villages have been swept away by flash
floods. All this will need to be verified. The inter-agency team made of
UN agencies, Red Cross and European NGOs are going to be travelling on
inter-agency assessment and see what they can. That'll be our first
rapid assessment. In terms of numbers what we're getting from the
government, and I repeat from the government, so it's not independently
verified, is 88 dead and 66-thousand displaced people.
EWART:
The fact that as you say the information that you have is still to be
independently verified, how much of a difficulty does that therefore
pose in dealing with the problems that need to be dealt with, reaching
the people that need help?
SAUVAGE: Based on the
early information we're able to provide immediate relief through our
pre-positioned stocks of emergency health kits and also sanitation kits.
We will also be able to release some food from pre-positioned stocks,
but any kind of more important intervention that requires a more
detailed assessment.
EWART: And presumably also requires the cooperation of the North Korean government?
SAUVAGE:
Absolutely, it requires the cooperation and so far we are receiving it.
And also making sure if you will that the extent of the damage is
attributable to the floods. The infrastructure of the country is really
not in good shape, the health system is broken, agriculture is not able
at present to provide enough food for everybody. And pumping systems,
sanitation systems are in very bad shape. So we want to be careful about
whatever disaster we are able to assess is not if you will attributable
unfortunately to what was there before.
EWART:
Could you see a situation where the new North Korean regime would be
prepared to ask for help from outside from other countries?
SAUVAGE:
I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where I was officially
received, and the government asked for our usual assistance in terms of
the agencies that are resident in DPRK. So we will provide aid from our
pre-positioned stocks. For the time being there is no reason to expect a
larger appeal, such as was done last year for the food emergency.
EWART:
But as someone who is perhaps more familiar than most in dealing with
North Korean politics, do you sense that there is a change of mood, that
they are perhaps more approachable than they were under the previous
leader?
SAUVAGE: I find it very early to tell,
even when we are resident in the country we do not get to see very
closely the changes at the political level. Just like you we follow the
same radio stories and read the same websites, but in fact we don't see
very much ourselves. My assessment is it's too early to tell whether
they'll be fundamental or deep changes into the regime.
EWART:
Do you think though that the way that this current crisis as a result
of the rains and the floods that have come with it, the way this crisis
is handled will be an indicator of how the regime is moving?
SAUVAGE:
I think the government is used unfortunately to be faced with floods,
it's a country which is prone to natural disasters. And in a country
where the infrastructure is so fragile, it's in such bad shape, it
doesn't take much for a natural disaster to become a very serious
natural disaster. The country has systems and they have ways to respond
to this crisis, and they have activated them, and that's what we're
seeing taking place for the moment.
EWART: Now you
said that the information that you're in possession of is yet to be
independently verified. Do you fear that the situation therefore could
be much worse, or do you believe the figures you have are as accurate as
you might expect at this stage?
SAUVAGE: Even the
government told us that these were very preliminary data that they
could gather from their national Red Cross and from the country level.
Their data doesn't move very well around the country in normal times, so
I fully expect that the data will need to be very much adjusted during
our assessment this morning and over the following days. It could go
either way, it could turn out that it's not as bad as we were fearing,
or it could turn out that it is worse than we were fearing.
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