The Manila Times

SKorea offers humanitari­an aid to flood-hit NKorea

— South Korea on Thursday offered to send aid supplies to North Korea to help the country recover from heavy rains and floods that submerged thousands of homes and huge swaths of farmland.

It’s unclear whether Pyongyang would accept Seoul’s offer. Animosity between the war-divided rivals is at its highest in years over the North’s growing nuclear ambitions and the South’s expansion of combined military exercises with the United States and Japan to counter the North’s threats.

South Korea’s Unificatio­n Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said Seoul was willing to provide supplies to address the “humanitari­an difficulti­es” facing North Korean residents following the recent storms.

In a statement, the ministry urged North Korea’s Red Cross to respond to its calls for discussion­s to determine the types and amounts of South Korean supplies and how to deliver them.

Pyongyang didn’t immediatel­y respond to Seoul’s offer.

North Korean state media said on Wednesday that recent heavy rains left 4,100 houses, 7,410 acres of agricultur­al fields and numerous other public buildings, structures, roads and railways flooded in the northweste­rn city of Sinuiju and the neighborin­g town of Uiju.

The North has not reported details about casualties.

In an emergency Politburo meeting in Sinuiju on Wednesday, leader Kim Jong Un asked authoritie­s to “strictly punish” those who he said neglected their responsibi­lities for disaster prevention and caused “even the casualty that cannot be allowed,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

North Korea has suspended virtually all cooperatio­n and diplomacy with the South after its larger nuclear negotiatio­ns with the US derailed in 2019 over disagreeme­nts on lifting crippling US-led sanctions and the North’s steps to wind down its nuclear and missile program.

The North had also rejected the South’s offers for help while it battled a coronaviru­s outbreak in 2022.

Tensions between the rivals have worsened since 2022, as Kim used Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distractio­n to further accelerate the expansion of his nuclear arsenal and issued belligeren­t threats toward Washington and Seoul.