Train collision in North Korea: trains loaded with LPG and oil

(CNN) — Two trains carrying flammable materials exploded Thursday in a North Korean train station, leaving a large number of casualties, South Korean media reported.

South Korean media quoted witnesses saying the explosion was the result of a collision between the trains at Ryongchon station.

(picture) “Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky,” Yonhap news agency reported.

Details were not immediately available.

Earlier in the day, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had passed through the station on a return trip from China, South Korean news network YTN said.

Ryongchon is northwest of the capital Pyongyang and about 50 kilometers south of North Korea’s border with China.

Yonhap, quoting unidentified sources in the Chinese city of Dandong, said the trains were carrying oil and/or liquefied petroleum gas.

The incident happened about 1 p.m. local time, Yonhap said.

“The area around Ryongchon station has turned into ruins as if it were bombarded,” Yonhap quoted witnesses as saying, according to The Associated Press.

“Debris from the explosion soared high into the sky and drifted to Sinuju,” a North Korean town on the border with China, AP quoted the agency as saying.

North Korean authorities declared a state of alert in the area where the crash occurred, Yonhap reported.

The report did not give details but said a type of “state of emergency” had been evoked around Ryongchon.