Severe flooding across North Korea has killed 88 people and left tens of thousands homeless, state media has reported.
The situation is threatening to make the poverty-stricken country's already chronic food shortage worse.
The floods caused by torrential rains and a typhoon this month stranded nearly 63,000 people and caused "big human and material losses", North Korea's official KCNA news agency said.
Since the mid-1990s, North Korea's farm sector has often been devastated by both floods and drought.
Even before the rain and typhoon this summer, the country's dysfunctional food distribution system, very high inflation and foreign sanctions imposed because of Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes had contributed to what appears to be severe hunger in the North.
But in April, after a North Korean rocket launch failed, the isolated state abandoned an agreement with the US, after Washington suspended 240,000 tonnes of food aid it had promised to the North as part of the deal.
Talk that North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong-un, plans to reform the broken economy is helping drive rice prices higher.
Mr Kim, who is in his late 20s, took over as head of the dynasty last December on the death of his father.
His father’s rule took North Korea deeper into isolation, abject poverty and large-scale political repression.
A recent United Nations report classified 7.2 million of the 24 million population as "chronic poor" and said one in three children were stunted due to poor nutrition.
