UN agencies operating in North Korea have called for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to support a fund to rehabilitate the North's flood-stricken northeast region, a US broadcaster, monitored here, reported on Friday.

This summer, six areas in North Hamkyong Province were devastated by heavy rains accompanied by Typhoon Lionrock.

CERF has received an application for an emergency relief fund from the offices of UN agencies in North Korea, Christelle Loupforest, the acting chief of the CERF resource mobilization and communications section, was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the Voice of America.

CERF will review the application and decide on the aid as quickly as possible, Loupforest said.

At present, the United Nations' World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization and UNICEF are active in the poverty-stricken nation.

Earlier, the UN announced a plan to stage a campaign to raise some $28 million to assist residents in the six North Hamkyong areas, which saw the country’s worst-ever flooding. The UN estimates that 138 North Koreans were killed and 400 others are missing, with about 20,000 houses destroyed.

Some voiced concerns, however, that the North is making ill use of flood damage in nullifying the UN sanctions after its nuclear test.

Chance are high that if the North receives aid, it will make bombastic propaganda to its people that superpowers like the United States and the UN have offered support in fear of the North, Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the US-based non-governmental Committee for Human Rights in North Korea recently told US media outlet Radio Free Asia. (Yonhap)