Sixty flood victims have been rescued in North Korea thanks to a helicopter urgently sent by leader Kim Jong-un, state media said on Wednesday.

The victims, including children and women, were trapped on Monday on a hillock at Jwa-ri in the northwestern province of Pyongan after a river flooded due to heavy rain, the official news agency said.

"Isolated incommunicado, they did not find a way out, in panic at rising water. At that time a helicopter appeared," it said.

"After receiving an urgent report, the dear respected Kim Jong-un issued an emergency sortie order to a unit of the Air Force of the Korean People's Army."

Service personnel rushed to the scene aboard the helicopter and used a rope ladder to rescue those trapped after several shuttle flights, the report said.

The Kim dynasty which has ruled the country since its founding in 1948 is frequently given credit by official media for such acts of benevolence.

The North, beset by persistent severe food shortages, has reported weeks of drought followed by recent torrential rain in some areas which washed away sections of a railway line.

With rugged terrain and outmoded agricultural practices, the country faces serious difficulties in feeding its 24 million people. Hundreds of thousands died during a famine in the mid to late-1990s.

Source: AFP