Monsoon downpours caused much more damage than the secretive North's state media have claimed, said Good Friends, an independent rights group which in the past has provided accurate information about the isolated communist country.

"North Korea has suffered really severe damage from recent rains, with nearly 3,000 people known to have been recorded dead or missing," the group said in a statement.

"Damage and casualties are far heavier than known so far to the outside world," it said.

Lee Seung-Yong, a Good Friends activist, refused to say how the group obtained information on North Korea's rain damage. "We are collecting data from various sources," he said.

North Korea was lashed by a typhoon on July 10, followed by three days of heavy monsoon rains.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said last week the rains had left hundreds of people dead or missing, with agricultural and other sectors of the country's economy badly damaged.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Tuesday that nearly 250 people were dead or missing in the disaster.

That figure was based on government statistics provided to the International Red Cross, said Hope Weiner, an official with the federation's East Asia regional office in Beijing.

The federation said the worst natural disaster to hit the impoverished country in four years swept away a vast area of arable land, left nearly 17,000 families and totally or partially destroyed 23,400 houses.

Good Friends said North Korea had imposed a temporary ban on unnecessary domestic trips, with roads and railways cut off in many areas.

The center of Pyongyang was also partly flooded for the first time in 16 years, it said.

"The rain caused the Taedong river to flood for the first time in 16 years," it said. The river runs along the central section of Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, North Korea's two northeastern provinces were hit by a prolonged drought this year, it said.

Damage to the harvest across North Korea sparked concerns that its chronic food shortages may worsen again this year, the group said.

North Korea has relied on emergency shipments from the the UN's World Food Program (WFP) to feed one-third of its population since being hit by a series of natural diasters in the mid-1990s.

But it stopped accepting UN food aid late last year and asked for development assistance instead, citing better harvests and aid from China and South Korea.

However, South Korea earlier this month angrily rejected a North Korean request for rice aid after Pyongang launched a series of missile tests that earned it international condemnation.

"North Korea's food shortages are getting worse due to the suspension of humanitarian aid from South Korea and tensions" over its missile tests, Good Friends said.

Famine may hit the country again this year, it said.

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