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PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA (ANS) -- The BBC has announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died of a heart attack at the age of 69, state media has announced.

Millions of North Koreans had been “engulfed in indescribable sadness”, the KCNA news agency said. People were seen weeping in the capital Pyongyang.

Pyongyang's neighbors are on alert amid fears of instability in the poor and isolated nuclear-armed nation.

International journalist Dan Wooding, one of the only Christian journalists to ever report from inside North Korea, has issued a statement today from the UK where he is visiting.

Wooding, 71, also founder of the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net) said, “The death of Kim Jong-il is a cataclysmic event in the history of North Korea and could finally herald the beginning of freedom for the people of this secretive country.

"His death could also now mean that the North Korean tyrannical regime which I believe is in its death throes, could finally come crashing down.

"North Korea has, for many years now, held the dubious title of the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. Maybe now this could change.

“I believe that there is now a serious possibility that the passing of Kim Jong-il will eventually see the collapse of the country and its opening up, especially to the South Korea people.

“Earlier this year, on my last trip to South Korea, I discovered many North Korean escapees there who have since become Christians are willing to go back into the country with the Gospel and are also willing to lay down their lives if the door suddenly snaps shut after a short time."

Wooding added, “North Korea will never be the same following the deaths of Kim il-Sung and now Kim Jong-il, a father and son team of despots who ruled North Korea with iron fists and held their people back to the point of starvation and did all they could to wipe out the underground church there.

“May the sweet winds of freedom now sweep into this land that has seen so much bloodshed and hate over the past many years. Let us pray that this occurs.”