North Korea Cancels Major Ceremony Due to Ryongchon Disaster Government Specifies Disaster Relief Plans for North Korea International Red Cross Staff Urgently Sent to Pyongyang 40% of Homes Destroyed, 8,000 Left Homeless Following Ryongchon Blast Finding the Ryongchon Tragedy’s Silver Lining International Relief Agencies Urge More Information About N. Korean Train Explosion North Korea Rejects Overland Aid Route Proposal

Of course, when and how the North receives the relief supplies is up to the North Korean authorities. The South Korean government and people said they would help; it’s not like they’re telling the North to do this or do that. Yet to provide the emergency food and medical supplies to the thousands of wounded and homeless is a fight against time. We don’t know where the victims are, or what kinds of hardships they are experiencing now. It’s hard to find the wounded or the homeless even in the photos that were released from the scene two days ago. One wonders if their image is so horrid that the North Korean authorities have shunned releasing photos of them.

For South Korean trucks laden with relief supplies to ramble down North Korean streets must be burdensome to the North Korean regime. But if the North Korean authorities take into account the dire situation the victims are in, it needs to be a little bolder. There is a precedent, too, for transporting aid overland; in 1998, when Hyundai sent cows to the North aboard South Korean trucks.

One can also cross through Panmunjom and switch the aid to North Korean trucks, and if there aren’t enough vehicles, one can use unmarked South Korean trucks. If there are additional technical and formality issues, the North and South can work those problems out together. If one is going to ship the supplies by sea from Incheon to Nampo, considering how long it would take to load and unload the supplies and put them on North Korean transport, it could take two times as long. One could also send the stuff that needs to get their fast overland and the rest by ship.

The government must find a quick and effective way of getting the supplies to the disaster site that doesn’t put burdens on the North Korean regime, and do its best to convince North Korean authorities. One must not, however, unreasonably provoke the North Korean authorities. Right now, afflicted by disaster, North Korea is a house in mourning.