N. Korea denies aid trucks

DANDONG, China -- North Korea balked Monday at opening its heavily armed border to relief trucks from rival South Korea, even as international aid groups sought more help for thousands injured or made homeless by a massive train explosion.\nAs a cold rain fell over the devastated community of Ryongchon, North Korea, relief workers warned more food, blankets and medicine were needed immediately in the impoverished nation.\nVideo released by the United Nations showed patients squeezed two to a bed in shabby hospitals, with compresses over their eyes and facial injuries from being struck by a wave of glass, rubble and heat in Thursday's blast.\nAid workers said North Korea was short of even basic equipment like sutures and intravenous drips, and donated goods were being used up as quickly as they could be supplied.\nThe Red Cross distributed a three-month supply of antibiotics, anesthetics and bandages to North Korean hospitals over the weekend, but "according to the hospitals, they have already used these medical supplies and have requested more," said Niels Juel, an official for the agency based in Beijing.\n"The overall health system ... is very strained," said Brendan McDonald, a U.N. aid coordinator in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Electrical power and water supplies are "all inadequate," he said.\nThe Red Cross launched an emergency appeal Monday for $1.25 million in aid for North Korea. "Some families have lost all their belongings," Juel said. "Also, the water and sanitation system in that area would need to be restored."\nDays after the catastrophe, details were still only trickling out from the secretive, communist North. Aid workers who first arrived in Ryongchon, North Korea, Saturday described seeing huge craters, twisted railroad tracks and scorched buildings.\nThe casualty toll stood at 161 dead and more than 1,300 injured by the explosion of oil and chemicals, aid agencies said.\nNearly half of the dead were children in a school torn apart by the blast, and the disaster left thousands of residents homeless, the aid workers said.\nOne worker who toured a hospital in the nearby city of Sinuiju said injured children lay on filing cabinets because there weren't enough beds. The hospital was "short of just about everything," said Tony Banbury, Asia regional director for the U.N. World Food Program, after his visit Sunday.\nU.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday the United States will give financial assistance to North Korea in response to the disaster but gave no further details.\nThe Bush administration is working with the United Nations and "we will be making an offer," Powell said.\nJapan, Russia and Australia are among the countries that have already offered to send supplies. Neighboring China dispatched truckloads of tents, blankets and food across its border over the weekend.\nBut North Korea's border with South Korea remained sealed.