Disasters
Aid is slow to arrive after landslide in Papua New Guinea
A large landslide has buried the village of Kaokalam. Photo
© Ninga Role/NINGA ROLE/AAP Image/dpa
A section of the mountain collapsed during the night, burying entire towns and hundreds of people. Help from outside is only slowly reaching one of the most inaccessible regions on earth.
After a landslide in the remote highlands Hundreds of deaths feared in Papua New Guinea. The village of Yambali, for example, disappeared under the earth, the local newspaper “Post Courier” described the disaster. Several places in the province of Enga are said to have been hit when part of a mountain broke off at around 3 a.m. on Friday morning (local time).
At least 300 people were believed to be buried, the media reported, citing government officials in the region. More than 1,000 houses and 5,000 pigs were buried. Official casualty figures have not yet been released.
Local residents estimated that at least 100 people died in the accident. But the number could be far higher. According to media reports, more than 3,000 people lived in the affected area. Sparse footage from the scene of the accident showed residents climbing over huge boulders and pulling bodies out from under the rubble. However, only a few bodies have actually been recovered so far.
Aid organisation CARE Australia arrives
Local residents continued to search for those buried under extremely difficult conditions. According to the aid organization CARE Australia, a rapid response team managed to reach the affected areas on Saturday morning, the BBC reported.
According to CARE, road access to the village was blocked and the area was initially only accessible by helicopter. In addition, the ground is still moving and there is a risk of further landslides.
Landslides and earthquakes are not uncommon
Regional emergency services were on their way to the disaster area to provide residents with medicine and food. There was also a lack of heavy equipment for rescue operations on site – on Friday, people on site reportedly tried to free buried people with axes and machetes.
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape said on Friday that he had sent disaster relief workers and the military to help. The governments of Australia and the USA said their countries were ready to help.
The tropical island of Papua New Guinea lies north of Australia. Due to its proximity to the equator, heavy rainfall is not uncommon.
In addition, the island state with ten million inhabitants is located on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the most seismically active regions on earth. Earthquakes occur again and again – most recently a few days ago, when a magnitude 4.5 earthquake shook the province of Enga. It was unclear whether the tremors were related to the landslide that has now occurred.