North Korea has reportedly asked a U.S. nongovernmental organization to provide aid for the first time since it was hit by heavy rains earlier this month.

Quoting a report posted on the Web site of the U.S. aid group “Christian Friends of Korea," Radio Free Asia reported Monday that the North requested the maximum amount of food aid and medicine the group could provide, citing enormous losses from recent flooding.

The report said members of the aid group plan to arrive in the North on August 26th and stay until early September to assess the flood damage and to deliver food and medical supplies.

Quoting the International Federation of the Red Cross, the broadcaster said that about ten-thousand people have been displaced in Sinuiju, North Pyeongan Province, due to heavy rains on August ninth, and that torrential rain destroyed some 13-hundred houses in South Hwanghae Province in late July.