North Korean railroad trains, due to obsolete tracks and diminishing funding, have long been exposed to danger. In 1997, a passenger train that departed from Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, and headed to Manpo, Jagang Province, derailed on a bridge on a descending slope called Kaegogae Hill between Huichon and Chonchon, and plunged into the valley tens of meters below. It was a horrible disaster, leaving few people alive. Passengers were packed into the train like sardines. People's Army units stationed nearby were mobilized to look after the aftermath, with no villagers allowed to approach the scene of the accident.

A Ministry of Public Security (police) record, for internal use only, totaled the death toll at 2,400 people, according to a North Korean defector who had been assigned to No. 3 Daehyokmyong Sojo when the disaster occurred. Widely-spread rumors then had it that over 2,000 died in the train accident. As public sentiments deteriorated considerably in the face of acute food shortages, some rumors blamed a few South Korean espionage agents for the accident.

After a while, the Kaechon railroad bureau director, the military commander in charge of the area's railroads and an engineer in charge of the tracks of the accident site are said to have been publicly executed. In addition, 36 ranking officials of the Kaechon railroad bureau were relieved of their posts. Unlike other major accidents, a considerable number of passengers on the train who were killed in the disaster were posthumously made "martyrs." This indicates that the North Korean authorities, for fear of side-effects from the accident, went a long way to cope with popular feelings.