Report: 4 dead and over 300 buried in landslide in Papua New Guinea

Landslide shakes remote part of Enga province

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea:

Rescue teams arrived at the scene of a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea’s remote highlands on Saturday, helping villagers search for hundreds of people believed to have died under huge mountains of rubble and mud.

The disaster occurred around 3 a.m. on Friday in a remote part of Enga province, while many villagers were sleeping at home, according to government officials.

“We are currently still searching for the bodies buried by the massive landslide,” said community leader Mark Ipuia, who fears that “more than 300” villagers have been buried.

So far, at least four bodies have been recovered from the rubble, a UN official stationed in the capital Port Moresby told AFP on Saturday morning.

“There are many houses under the rubble that cannot be reached,” said UN official Serhan Aktoprak. He estimates that up to 3,000 people called the hillside settlement their home.

“The land continues to slide and move, making it dangerous for people to work there,” he told AFP.

Aid groups said the disaster had virtually wiped out the village’s livestock, vegetable gardens and clean water sources.

A rapid response team of doctors, soldiers and police officers streamed into the disaster area on Saturday morning after access was made difficult by the impassable terrain and damage to the main roads.

“Although the area is not densely populated, we fear that the death toll may be disproportionately high,” the aid organization CARE said on Saturday as the first reinforcements arrived.

Total devastation

The pictures showed a picture of utter devastation. A huge chunk of earth had been torn out of the densely vegetated Mount Mungalo.

Barefoot workers used shovels, axes and improvised tools to loosen and move the earth, while others dug into the jagged piles of corrugated iron that had once provided shelter.

The landslide dislodged car-sized boulders, trees and soil that extended into the valley.

Volunteers dragged a covered body out of the destruction on a makeshift stretcher.

Steven Kandai, a community leader at the scene, told AFP that many residents had not had time to flee.

“Suddenly there was a big landslide. The mountain suddenly collapsed while people were still sleeping,” he said, adding that their houses were “completely buried.”

Dozens of local men and women climbed over the piles of rocks and dirt, digging, screaming, listening for survivors or simply looking at the scene in disbelief.

Since the region lies just south of the equator, heavy rainfall is common.

In March, at least 23 people were killed in a landslide in a nearby province.

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