Most of the $1.8 billion request would be allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services to improve laboratory capacity, launch educational programs and establish rapid response teams.

More than 100 people are believed to still be under the debris in a disaster that struck during the most important family holiday in the Chinese calendar.

Whatever motives Pyongyang may have about using its rocket launches to develop nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, it now has two satellites circling the Earth.