N. Korea famine not imminent but flood impact not yet clear

BEIJING (REUTERS) - Impoverished North Korea is a long way from famine levels that killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s but it won't be until late next month that a full assessment of food levels after recent floods is possible, a United Nations official said on Thursday.

North Korea's state media says the death toll from flooding between late June and the end of July has reached at least 169, with some 400 people missing and 212,200 homeless.

The floods have washed away 65,280 ha of farmland, with more than 1,400 educational, healthcare and factory buildings also collapsed or damaged, North Korea says.

"Fortunately we are really quite far away from the situation in the mid-1990s," said Ms Claudia von Roehl, the UN World Food Programme's (WFP) representative in North Korea.