Another preventable mishap on the Dear Leader's benevolent watch....

About 110 people were killed this month in North Korea when gasoline leaking from a dilapidated pipeline exploded in a rural area of the communist country, a South Korean aid group said yesterday. The Seoul-based organization Good Friends said in a newsletter that the blast occurred on June 9 in North Pyongan Province, which borders China. The group said the accident happened in rice paddies in Sonchon County. The area is about 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. Good Friends did not provide a source for the report. Some of its previous reports about accidents and natural disasters in North Korea, however, have proven reliable. Lee Seung-yong, the group’s project coordinator, said the information came from “various channels,” but he refused to elaborate. The independent group, which provides aid to the North, said the explosion occurred while people gathered to scoop up gasoline leaking from a crack in the pipeline, which runs through rice fields. The victims were engulfed in flames, Good Friends said. The fire was not extinguished until the next day, the group said. The group used both the Korean words for oil and gasoline in its newsletter, but used gasoline more often. South Korea’s Unification Ministry, in charge of relations with North Korea, said it was trying to verify the report. The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, also said it was trying to confirm it.