While the world focuses on North Korea's belligerent rhetoric and scrutinises signs that could indicate a nuclear test, a human catastrophe may be unfolding behind the closed borders of the secretive state.
Monsoon rains lash Korea every summer, but this July the peninsula was swept by the worst floods recorded since 1973, when South Korea first started collecting data. The severe conditions were caused by typhoons coinciding with the monsoon. Sixty people were killed or disappeared in South Korea, and some Seoul neighbourhoods were flooded; the roofs of stalled buses became islands.
Given the damage done to highly developed South Korea - the world's 10th largest economy - experts wonder how much worse the situation could be in the impoverished North.
As a result, Seoul has reversed the decision it made, following Pyongyang's missile tests on July 5, to suspend aid to its neighbour, and announced the reinstatement of a US$230 million emergency package. However, because of the paucity of information from North Korea, a controversy has arisen over the exact number of victims claimed by the floods.
'There are no reliable figures,' said Andrei Lankov, a Russian expert on North Korea who teaches at Seoul's Kookmin University.
'Charities exaggerate figures, as they need to raise money; North Korea tends to under-report the number of victims, but over-reports material damage, so it can squeeze more aid.'