Anchor: KBS has secured the testimony of a North Korean who witnessed the devastation due to recent floods in the North. According to the source from the city of Hoeryong near the Sino-North Korea border, the floods late last month claimed hundreds of lives. The North Korean said that the Tumen River embankment collapsed, sweeping over one hundred border guards.
Our Kim In-kyung has more.
 
Report: A North Korean resident says recent floods that devastated North Korea killed several hundred people, including soldiers stationed at the North's border with China, as embankments along the Tumen River collapsed.
 
The voice has been modified to protect the North Korean's identity.
 
[Sound bite: North Korean resident in Hoeryong - voice altered to protect identity (Korean)]
"[The flood] swept away a paper factory, all the houses and farms below the Tumen River embankment."
"It swept the military. It killed military men. Guards at the military base at the dock were all swept away."
"Hundreds were killed. About a hundred. One hundred just in Hoeryong."
 
The witness said many border guards stationed along the Tumen River, which is a major route through which North Koreans escape to China, died or went missing.
 
It appears that soldiers who had been sleeping in their barracks were swept away by the flood when the embankment collapsed after more than 300 milliliters of rainfall instantly raised the water level.
 
The resident said more than one hundred people, including soldiers, died in Hoeryong alone and hundreds in North Hamgyong Province.
 
The North Korean said restoration is slow, there isn't enough food and water and that he will be lucky to be alive in the coming months as temperatures are expected to drop below zero degrees in October.
 
According to official figures, the worst flood in North Korea in decades have left 138 people killed and 400 missing. The UN resident coordinator in Pyongyang said last week that nearly 20-thousand homes were destroyed after remnants of Typhoon Lionrock caused flooding in the North's northeast. Heavy rains caused the Tumen River to overflow, leading to severe floods and landslides, particularly in North Hamgyong. 
Kim In-kyung, KBS World Radio News.