SEOUL, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- North Korea complained Sunday that a planned shipment of flood-relief aid from South Korea is much smaller than expected.
The state-controlled weekly Tongil Sinbo said the rice shipment the South Korean Red Cross said would feed 200,000 people for 50 days was not nearly adequate.
"After the lid was removed from the box of aid, there was only 5,000 tons of rice in it," Tongil Sinbo said in a posting on the North's official Web site.
The statement, which was monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, said the shipment would not last "even for a day."
The Red Cross aid package, which includes rice and cement, was consigned to Sinuiju, a town near the Chinese border in a region hit hard by rain and flooding last month.
The shipment had been seen by diplomatic analysts as an easing of tensions between the two Koreas, Yonhap said. North Korea relies heavily on donations of rice and other supplies to prop up its economy.
