Sources in North Korea have reported that a train has derailed in North Hamgyong Province. The incident comes in the wake of another recent train derailment in South Korea.
“A freight train carrying food derailed near Komusan Station in Puryong County early last week (December 3). There weren’t any casualties because it was a freight train,” said a North Hamgyong Province-based source on December 12.
“The derailment is causing delays on the route because the recovery process is taking a long time.”
Komusan Station is on the Hambuk Line that connects Chongjin, Hoeryong and Rason along with the Musan Line that leads to Musan, with the station seeing a lot of freight trains carrying cement, metals and other materials. The derailment has caused delays in train traffic in the area, affecting the transport of these materials. Passenger trains travelling between Chongjin and Musan are also likely to have been affected.
“Locals are working on repairs to the tracks, but they lack heavy machinery so the repair process has been slowed by reliance on manual labor,” the source continued. “There are no military bases nearby so the military can’t help out, either.”
North Korea suffers from a chronic shortage of heavy machinery to deal with incidents of this kind. Komusan Station is also located in a mountainous region with a poorly maintained road network.
“The food on the derailed train was for the country’s security services, not regular citizens. Locals working on the repairs are unhappy because they have to spend their own time working on repairs that won’t benefit them directly,” said a separate source in North Hamgyong Province.
“People don’t seem to be stealing the food. Security officials are making sure the people conducting the repairs are doing their jobs correctly.”
In South Korea, a train carrying 198 people derailed on its way from Gangneung Station to Seoul Station on December 8. A total of 16 people were injured in the incident, which was suspected to have been caused by a malfunction in the track switching controls.
