In North Korea, Worst Drought in Decades Adds to Food Crisis

North Korea said on Wednesday that it was suffering its worst drought in 37 years, adding to a food crisis that the United Nations said would worsen in coming months without urgent outside aid.

The country has received just 2.1 inches of rain this year, or 42.3 percent of the average, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said, adding that it was the lowest level since 1982. The news agency said weather conditions for heavy rain were not expected until the end of this month.

The report followed a joint announcement from two United Nations relief agencies this month that about 10 million North Koreans, or 40 percent of the population, were facing “severe food shortages” after the country had its worst harvest in a decade last fall.

The two groups, the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that North Korea’s early season crops like wheat and barley, which will be harvested next month, were likely to suffer from “widespread low rainfall and lack of snow cover, which left crops exposed to freezing temperatures during winter.”