The Huichon Children's Hospital is cold and damp. It is the only hospital in this city 200 kilometers north of Pyongyang. It has had no heating since floods in 1995 ruined the boiler. Along with no heat, there is no medicine and no food. Huddled listlessly in the small communal rooms that serve as wards are mothers with their emaciated children in advanced stages of malnutrition, too weak to cry, too strong yet to die.

Nearby on the other side of the river that divides the town -- and brought its destruction -- is the People's Distribution Center, responsible for delivering food to the population. There is no food left in the center. The last delivery for the whole population was in late October. Children received an allocation for 33 days, teachers, nurses and doctors 16 days, and the rest of the population 11 days. But the daily allocation was 250 grams, far below the U.N. recommended minimum of 700 grams for long-term survival. There is no indication as yet as to when the next delivery might be expected.

The world knows too well the horrors of famine. Here the sinews of society still hold together as the children, the old and the vulnerable starve in slow motion. In the last five years, 3 million have died -- one-eighth of the population. A generation is being slowly crippled. A World Food Program nutritional survey taken two years ago showed that one in six children had suffered brain damage from lack of food and the growth of 50 percent would be permanently stunted.