The United States is still weighing a possible aid package for flood-stricken North Korea, White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Thursday.
"We're in the process of assessing what is going on, on the ground now: What is the damage and what are their needs? And so that process is still ongoing. But we may have more for you on that later," Johndroe told reporters.
His comments came as US President George W. Bush was here on his Texas ranch for his August vacation from Washington.
Almost 300 people are dead or missing in floods in North Korea, an aid agency said Thursday, as the communist state painted a grim picture of inundated crops and homes, flooded mines and washed-out roads.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said 214 were killed and 80 are missing in what it has called the worst floods to hit the impoverished country in a decade.
The acting head of the IFRC delegation in Pyongyang, Terje Lysholm, told AFP by phone that the figures — the first detailed casualty count — came from the government.
Some 300,000 people are homeless, according to official data, and 11 percent of the grain harvest — equivalent to some 450,000 tons — was lost in a country which already needs foreign aid to feed its people.
