The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says it is working to prevent flood damage in North Korea this summer.

U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Asia quoted an IFRC official as noting that heavy rain fell in the North this spring.

The IFRC is examining weather conditions and working with international humanitarian organizations to prepare for flooding in the communist state. The relief organization is also believed to have set up disaster response committees in major North Korean cities and provinces.

Five hundred North Koreans died or went missing and over 900-thousand lost their homes in flash flooding in August 2007.

In the mid- to late 1990s, a series of floods and droughts in North Korea caused a widespread famine that experts estimate killed as many as two million people.