North Korea's population has shrunk by as many as 3 million people in the past four years because of famine, the Associated Press reported. The survey by the North Korea's Public Security Ministry confirms widespread Western reports that more than 500,000 North Koreans have died of hunger each year since 1995. Massive floods swept much of North Korea in 1994, aggravating the country's chronic food shortage caused by decades of inefficient collective farming. Bad weather, including droughts, in successive years caused the food shortage to become acute, forcing the country to turn to the international community for help.