Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea, plagued by years of famine caused by floods, drought and economic mismanagement, said recent torrential rains have damaged crops and buildings.

``The recent downpours inflicted heavy losses to various sectors of the national economy, including agriculture, and to the people living in the relevant areas,'' the official Korea Central News Agency said yesterday.

Heavy rain fell throughout the communist nation between Aug. 1 and 3, as well as last month in the provinces of Kangwon and South Hwanghae, KCNA said.

The worst food shortage in a decade for Kim Jong Il's regime may continue until next year's harvest as a lack of fuel and fertilizer threatens to lower production this season, Jean- Pierre de Margerie, the United Nations World Food Programme's country representative for North Korea, said last week.

North Korea's harvest of rice, corn and other staples will probably be lower this October after supplies were affected by last year's floods and declining international aid, he said.

Jong Il's father, the late Kim Il Sung, for decades mobilized vast work teams to fell trees and turn mountainsides into farmland, producing more water runoff that wrecked, power lines and agricultural fields.

South Korea has downplayed the food-shortage concerns.

``Recently, North Korea has repeatedly stressed to its people the need for self sufficiency in food, concentrating efforts to minimize any damage from torrential rains and floods,'' South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho Nyoun told reporters in Seoul yesterday. ``But as far as we can assess, crop damage is minimal.''

Last Updated: August 4, 2008 20:36 EDT