Heavy rains that left 59 people dead in South Korea last week also affected the North, flooding farmland, destroying bridges and damaging roads and railways, Pyongyang's state media reported Sunday.

Korean Central Television and Korean Central Broadcasting Station said Chongdan County in South Hwanghae province had received 522 millimetres (more than 20 inches) of rain in 12 hours on Tuesday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

More than 14,200 hectares (35,000 acres) of farmland in the county were flooded along with a further 10,200 hectares in Yonan County, both in the west of the country, northwest of Seoul, it said.

It said that other counties were suffered heavy rain over the weekend, and that in Yonan alone, 13 bridges were destroyed, while roads and railways across the province were also damaged.

There was no word on casualties.

The floods will deepen concerns about North Korea's ability to feed its people, who already face severe food shortages.

North Korea has relied heavily on international aid to feed its 24 million people since natural disasters and mismanagement devastated its economy in the mid 1990s and Pyongyang has stepped up appeals for food aid this year.

Last week's record rainfall in the South left at least 59 people dead and more than 11,000 homeless. Power supply was cut to 130,000 houses nationwide, the disaster management agency said.

A total of 301.5 millimetres (just over 12 inches) of rain fell in Seoul on Wednesday, the largest single-day rainfall in July since records began in 1907.

Thousands of troops, police, firefighters and volunteers were drafted in to help with the cleanup.

earlier related report
Toll from Philippines storms hits 54
Manila (AFP) July 31, 2011 - The death toll from tropical storm Nock-ten rose to 52 in the Philippines as another approaching storm left two more people dead and caused a large ship to sink, the civil defence office said Sunday.

Tropical storm Mufia was on Sunday about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of the country, bringing heavy rain and triggering a tornado, said civil defence deputy officer Florentino Sison.

As Mufia approached, a fishing boat capsized due to heavy rain just north of Manila last week, leaving two of the crew dead, said the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Another person was injured by a freak tornado in the same area on Friday, also due to Mufia, Sison added.

"It (Mufia) did not have a direct effect but it has affected the local weather situation, causing a tornado, flooding and heavy rains, leading to the mishap with the fishermen," Sison told AFP.

On Sunday, a passenger and cargo ship, the 2,400-tonne MV Trans Asia Malaysia, was hit by strong waves, causing it to list and sink but the coast guard and nearby vessels managed to rescue all 155 aboard, authorities said.

Local coast guard chief Commodore Athelo Ybanez said initial reports showed that the ropes holding down the vessel's cargo of motor vehicles and foodstuffs snapped due to the rough seas, causing the ship to list.

Mufia, named after a Chinese flower, is moving northward and is not expected to hit land in the Philippines, the government weather station said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Nock-ten's rampage through the country in the previous week rose to 52 dead and 27 missing as more reports came in from storm-hit provinces in the archipelago.

Most of those killed were drowned or buried in landslides, while virtually all of the missing were fishermen who were at sea when the storm hit its peak between Tuesday and Thursday, the council said.

Nock-ten, named after a Laotian bird, blew out into the South China Sea on Thursday, but over 121,000 people are still being housed in government evacuation centres due to flooding caused by the storm, the council added.

An average of 20 storms and typhoons, many of them deadly, hit the Philippines annually. Nock-ten was the 10th this year.

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