Villagers search through debris from a landslide in the village of Yambali in the Papua New Guinea highlands, Monday, May 27, 2024. Authorities fear a second landslide and outbreak looms at the scene due to waterways trapped under tons of debris and rotting corpses seeping down the slopes.
Juho Valta/UNDP Papua New Guinea/AP
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Juho Valta/UNDP Papua New Guinea/AP
MELBOURNE, Australia — Authorities fear a second landslide and outbreak looms at the scene of the mass-casualty disaster in Papua New Guinea due to waterways and trapped bodies under tons of debris that swept through a village, a United Nations official said Tuesday. .
A mass of rocks, earth and splintered trees devastated Yambali, in the remote highlands of the South Pacific country, when a limestone mountainside collapsed on Friday. The debris cover has become more unstable with recent rains and streams trapped between the ground and rubble, said Serhan Aktoprak, head of the International Organization for Migration’s mission to Papua New Guinea.
The UN agency has officials on the ground in Enga province to help shelter 1,600 displaced people. The agency estimates 670 villagers died, while the Papua New Guinea government told the United Nations it believed more than 2,000 people had been buried. On Monday, five bodies were pulled from the rubble.
“We are hearing suggestions that another landslide could occur and that perhaps 8,000 people would need to be evacuated,” Aktoprak told the Associated Press.
“This is a major concern. The movement of land and debris poses a serious risk and overall the total number of people likely to be affected could be 6,000 or more,” a- he declared. This includes villagers whose drinking water source has been buried and subsistence farmers who have lost their vegetable gardens.
“If this mass of debris is not stopped, if it continues to move, it can pick up speed and wipe out more other communities and villages further down the mountain,” Aktoprak said.
Scenes of villagers digging with their bare hands through muddy debris in search of the remains of their loved ones were also worrying.
“My biggest fear right now is that the corpses will decompose, … that the water will leak, which would cause serious health risks linked to contagious diseases,” Aktoprak said.
Aktoprak’s agency raised these concerns on Tuesday during a virtual meeting on disaster management bringing together national and international stakeholders.
A villager looks up from the top of a mountain that collapsed and caused a landslide in Papua New Guinea, Monday, May 27, 2024. Debris from the landslide covered the village of Yambali, in the country’s highlands, covered in rubble that is about 650 feet deep, authorities said.
Juho Valta/AP/UNDP Papua New Guinea
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Juho Valta/AP/UNDP Papua New Guinea
The warning comes as geotechnical experts and heavy earthmoving equipment are expected to arrive at the site soon.
The government of Papua New Guinea formally requested the United Nations on Sunday for additional assistance and coordination of contributions from different countries.
An Australian disaster response team was due to arrive in Papua New Guinea, Australia’s closest neighbor, on Tuesday. It will include a geohazard assessment team and drones to help map the site.
“Their role will be particularly to carry out geotechnical monitoring to establish the level of the landslide, the instability of the terrain there, and obviously to carry out work to identify the location of the bodies,” said Murray Watt, Australian Minister for Emergency Management.
Australian Pacific Minister Pat Conroy said the government would also provide long-term logistical support to clear debris, recover bodies and support displaced people. The government announced an initial aid package of 2.5 million Australian dollars ($1.7 million).
“This is an incredibly inaccessible part of Papua New Guinea and it is a very difficult process for everyone involved,” Conroy said.
Earth-moving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s army is expected to arrive soon, having traveled from the town of Lae, 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the east, said Justine McMahon, country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International.
The landslide buried a 200-meter (650-foot) stretch of the province’s main road. But the highway has been cleared from Yambali to the provincial capital Wabag to Lae, Enga officials said on Tuesday.
“One of the factors that complicated things was the destruction of parts of the road and the instability of the ground, but they have some confidence in their ability to accommodate heavy equipment today,” McMahon said Tuesday.
An excavator donated by a local builder on Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving equipment brought in to help villagers who were digging with shovels and farm tools to find the bodies.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing country, with 800 languages and 10 million people who make their living mostly as subsistence farmers.
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