(Changes 2nd line from "Reuters alertnet" to "Reuters")
In poor, rural regions in North Korea, children are piled into a tent that acts as a nursery.... their mud and brick school building next door was damaged by storms and flooding in late July.
During an unprecedented, and highly controlled, media tour, North Korean government officials brought Reuters reporters to areas worst hit by summertime floods... where residents are in a race against time to repair dwellings and infrastructure as the cold winter months bare down.
Here, teams of students and factory workers armed with shovels toil in a gully to try and repair broken concrete pipes that delivery their water.
Until they are fixed, residents are forced to hike some four kilometers into the mountains to lug water from fresh streams for drinking and cooking.
(SOUNDBITE) (Korean) CHAIRMAN OF THE FLOOD DAMAGE REHABILITATION COMMITTEE OF THE HAEJU CITY, CHOI SONG JIN, SAYING:
"Forty percent of the population, including the people in this area, are not supplied with fresh water. That's why the people in the area, and also local students, have come to reconstruct the public water supply system by themselves."
Already struggling with severe malnutrition, aid agency representatives say the flooding's affects on the food and water supplies takes the situation from bad to worse.
Food rations have fallen from the country's daily standard of 700 grams of grains per person per day to just 200 grams.
(SOUNDBITE) (Korean) CHIEF ENGINEER FOR THE FLOOD DAMAGE REHABILITATION COMMITTEE OF CHONG JONG-RI, CHONGDAN COUNTY, KIM MIN WON, SAYING:
"The usual expectation of our cooperative farm is to produce 6217 tonnes of cereals, but we can only expect 1350 tonnes of cereal because of the flooding."
Until recently, the U.S. and South Korea have been the biggest aid donors to the North.. but recent tensions on the peninsula, including two attacks last year that killed 50 South Koreans, have caused the South to re-evaluate their donation plans.
The U.S. offered $900,000 in flood assistance in August.
Julie Noce, Reuters
