SEOUL, Aug 14 (Reuters) - North Korea is seeking international help after it reported massive flooding had left hundreds of people dead or missing and washed away many buildings, a U.N. aid agency spokesman said on Tuesday.
North Korea, which has struggled with chronic food shortages for years, also said in a report early on Tuesday that floodwaters caused "tens of thousands of hectares of farmland (to be) inundated, buried under silt and washed away."
Paul Risley, Asia spokesman with the U.N. World Food Programme, said: "If the figures are borne out by our own assessment, then we are very concerned that this is a significant emergency crisis."
"It is still very early in this process but we have received a preliminary request from North Korean authorities, asking for our assistance," Risley said.
He said an inter-agency relief team was expected to be in North Korea in the next day.
Three big storms hit North Korea in 2006, and a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported that more than 800 people were killed or went missing in the resulting floods. The damage figures North Korea reported last year were lower than for this year's flooding.
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