At least 150 people were killed and 1,249 injured, while 8,000 houses damaged or destroyed in a train blast in Ryongchon city in North Korea near the Chinese border, the International Federation of Red Cross and  Red Crescent Society said today.

Earlier reports from South Korean capital Seoul had put  the toll at around 3,000. A total of 1,850  houses were destroyed and 6,350 houses and 12 public buildings  were damaged, Xinhua quoted a member of the IFRC's  Pyongyang bureau as saying. 

The bureau said it has sent an  assessment team to the site of the accident, and the toll is likely to rise. A UN team to coordinate of humanitarian efforts will go to the disaster site on Saturday, it said. The Chinese embassy in North Korea confirmed that at  east two Chinese citizens were killed and 12 other injured. two seriously,  in the blast, which occurred when the two goods train collided  leading to leakage of ammonium nitrate from one of them.