Landslide in Papua New Guinea: at least 2,000 deaths are feared. Everything you need to know

BANGKOK (AP) — The Papua New Guinea government says more than 2,000 people are believed to have been killed. buried alive in a landslide in the South Pacific island nation after a mountainside collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, while the village of Yambali slept.

The colony is located in a troubled and isolated area within the poor, rural country off Australia’s northern coast, making search and rescue efforts complicated and dangerous.

The government’s death toll is about three times that of the deaths. The UN estimates the number of deaths at 670. So far, the remains of only six people have been found.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday, the acting director of Papua New Guinea’s National Disaster Center, Luseta Laso Mana, said the landslide “buried more 2,000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” in the village of Yambali. in the province of Enga.

Estimates of the number of victims have varied widely since the disaster, and it was not immediately clear how authorities arrived at the number of people affected.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges:

DIFFICULT ACCESS, RESIVE POPULATION

The village of at least 4,000 people, but believed to be much larger, is in a mountainous, forested part of Papua New Guinea’s Enga province. It is located along a winding highway to the town of Porgera and a mine that has produced billions of dollars’ worth of gold but whose security personnel have been accused of abuses by rights groups .

The highway was covered by the landslide, cutting Porgera and other villages past Yambali from the provincial capital of Wabag, about 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the disaster site.

Emergency responders brought help from Wabag, but had to walk the last 200 meters of the journey on a highway covered in rubble.

Debris 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep covering an area the size of three or four football fields was cleared exclusively by hand with shovels and picks for more than two days, until the arrival on Sunday of an excavator offered by a local manufacturer. .

Survivors, however, are reluctant to allow the use of heavy machinery because they do not want the bodies of their loved ones to be harmed, said Serhan Aktoprak, head of the UN migration agency’s mission in Papua New. -Guinea. The donated excavator was driven away Monday morning, although it was unclear whether this was related to residents’ objections or another reason, he said.

Military engineers with additional heavy equipment are being flown to the disaster site, 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast town of Lae, and are expected to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday.

DEADLY LOCAL LEAVES COMPLICATE RESPONSE

The long-running tribal war in Enga province has not abated despite the disaster, meaning soldiers have had to provide security for humanitarian convoys heading to Yambali.

At least 26 men were killed in an ambush in February, and eight others died Saturday in a clash between two rival clans in a long-running conflict unrelated to the landslide. About 30 homes and five retail businesses were burned during the fighting, authorities said.

The convoys were only able to travel during daylight hours due to security risks, and with a two-hour journey each way, their time there was seriously limited, Aktoprak said in a telephone interview from Port Moresby, The capital of the country.

About 25 people from the UN, other agencies and the army made the trip daily. On Monday, they reported seeing houses on fire and men armed with machetes along the way, Aktoprak said.

Emergency crews also face the threat of continued natural disaster as the earth continues to shift in the disaster zone.

The debris is becoming increasingly waterlogged because of the three waterways covered by the landslide, making work dangerous and increasing the possibility of it sliding further down the slope. Communities below have already been evacuated, Aktoprak said.

“We are facing a situation that is getting worse every moment,” he said.

WHAT EXPECTS US

With the disaster underway and relief efforts still in their early stages, it’s difficult to know exactly what’s next.

But with the destruction of all the small farms and food gardens that supported the village’s subsistence farming population, as well as much of its livestock, it is clear that Yambali’s survivors will need help for some time. time.

The village is close to a river, but residents relied on the three streams buried by the landslide for their drinking water.

Justine McMahon, country director of humanitarian agency CARE International, said moving survivors to more stable ground was an immediate priority, as was providing them with food, water and shelter. The military led these efforts.

In addition to people who were evacuated from settlements below Yambali, Aktoprak said around 6,000 people had been affected by the disaster so far. If survivors end up migrating to urban areas, “this will trigger additional economic and social problems.”

Porgera and other towns beyond Yambali on the highway are now cut off and accessible only by helicopter, and it was not immediately clear what help people living in those areas might also have. need.

The Papua New Guinea government formally requested more international aid on Monday.

The United States and Australia, a close neighbor and Papua New Guinea’s most generous foreign aid provider, are among the governments that have publicly said they are willing to do more.

Papua New Guinea constitutes the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, with the western half belonging to Indonesia. It lies in the Pacific Ocean’s so-called “Ring of Fire,” a belt of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.

Its population is officially around 10 million, but the UN has said there has not been a full census in years and the real figure may be closer to 17 million.

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Associated Press writers Rod McGurk in Melbourne, Australia, and Adam Schreck in Bangkok contributed to this report.