SEOUL - Up to 3,000 people were killed or injured when two trains loaded with fuel collided and exploded at a North Korean station on Thursday, hours after leader Kim Jong-il had passed through, South Korea's YTN television said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which spoke of widespread destruction, said there were thousands of casualties and some form of emergency had been declared in the area near the border with China.

"The station was destroyed as if hit by a bombardment and debris flew high into the sky," Yonhap said, quoting unidentified Chinese sources. YTN in its report quoted witnesses.

Neither Yonhap nor YTN gave a breakdown of deaths and injuries and there was no independent confirmation of the reports.

Communist North Korea, one of the world's most reclusive and impoverished countries, has not said anything on the disaster.

Yonhap quoted sources in the Chinese city of Dandong that borders the North as saying the explosion occurred around 1 p.m. (0000 EDT) -- nine hours after Kim's special train was reported to have passed on its way to Pyongyang after a visit to China.

The sources said trains carrying gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas collided at Ryongchon station 10 miles south of the Yalu river border near the Yellow Sea.

There were rumors the fuel was a gift from China to Kim and his energy-starved country, Yonhap said.

Ryongchon is transliterated as Yongchon in South Korea and appears that way on most maps in the West.

Yonhap also quoted a senior Defense Ministry official as saying the South's military -- which eavesdrops on North Korea -- had heard about the blast through "intelligence channels directed against the North."

The United States, which runs the largest intelligence gathering operation on the North, said it had no confirmation of the blast.

"I don't think we know enough about the situation yet to know whether there's any assistance that we have that might be necessary," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

There was no immediate suggestion the blast was anything other than an accident.

But the explosion came after Kim met China's new leadership during a rare foreign visit to discuss the North's nuclear weapons plans, tentative economic reforms and aid that has in the past included fuel.

NO MENTION

North Korea's official media made no mention of the disaster, but earlier on Thursday they broke their silence on Kim's three-day trip to Beijing -- strongly suggesting he was safely back.

International telephone lines to the area appear to have been cut to prevent information about the explosion getting out, Yonhap added.

The North's creaking medical system would be hard pressed to cope with a large number of casualties, but there was no word any international agency or neighboring country had been asked for help.

"We have not yet received official information on the accident. We are trying to confirm the report," a Unification Ministry spokesman said in Seoul. Other officials at various government agencies also had no information.

At the United Nations in New York, a North Korean diplomat said he had no information except what he had heard from outside reports.

Yonhap said the Chinese sources said people in Dandong were concerned their friends or relatives could have been caught up in the blast. Traders from both sides criss-cross the border area.

A railway worker on the Chinese side of the Dandong border crossing told Reuters he had not heard of a blast and had seen no signs of any emergency effort under way.

"The closest station to here in North Korea is in Sinuiju (on the border), and I would have heard it. But I didn't hear anything," he said by telephone.

Residents in Pyongyang said by telephone there was nothing unusual in the capital. North Korean television was broadcasting military songs and music -- standard evening fare.

Masood Hyder, the World Food Program coordinator in Pyongyang, said he was not sure if or when the government might inform his agency of the reported accident.

"It's not necessary that they would tell us," he said by telephone. "Often it's the foreign news that confirms things even before they admit to it."

North Korea suffers from debilitating food and energy shortages. Energy assistance is an integral part of multinational talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear programs. A Seoul National University professor Chang Dal-joong said North Korean officials had confessed energy shortage was one of the biggest problems the country faced.

(Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff in New York and Jonathan Ansfield, Brian Rhoads and John Ruwitch in Beijing)

© Copyright Reuters 2004.

###