Port Moresby: A massive landslide in Papua New Guinea leaves 670 people dead as per the International Organisation for Migration on Sunday. The aid workers and villagers have been going through tough conditions to look for survivors. “There are an estimated 150-plus houses now buried” said UN migration agency official Serhan Aktoprak, adding that “670-plus people are assumed dead”.
“The situation is terrible with the land still sliding. The water is running and this is creating a massive risk for everyone involved,” added Aktoprak, who is based in Port Moresby. When the landslide struck in the early hours of Friday morning, scores of homes and people sleeping inside were utterly destroyed, leaving the hillside community in Enga province destroyed.
“People are using digging sticks, spades, large agricultural forks to remove the bodies buried under the soil,” Aktoprak said. More than 1,000 people have been displaced by the catastrophe, he added, with food gardens and water supplies almost completely wiped out.
At first, officials in the area and relief organizations thought that between 100 and 300 individuals might have died in the accident. Disaster relief personnel on the ground discovered more people were residing in the community than first thought, hence the death toll was increased, according to Aktoprak. More than 4,000 people lived in the settlement, which served as a trading hub for alluvial miners heading for the gold in the surrounding hills.
Five bodies have been found from the debris since Saturday night. Along the only remaining route into the catastrophe area, tribal warfare had broken out. Aktoprak stated that the violence was “not related to the landslide” and that the military of Papua New Guinea was offering a “security escort” to guarantee the protection of relief convoys.
The landslide which was a mix of car-sized boulders that uprooted trees and churned up earth – was thought to be eight metres (26 feet) deep. Locals said that landslides may been triggered by heavy rains that have saturated the region in recent weeks.
Papa New Guinea has the wettest climate in the world, as per the World Bank, with the heaviest downpours concentrated in the humid highland regions. Images showed barefoot workers shifting the earth with shovels and axes, while others picked through the mangled piles of corrugated iron that once provided shelter. Much-needed heavy machinery was expected to begin arriving at the site on Sunday.
