People clear an area at the site of a landslide in Yambali village, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea on May 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: UNDP Papua New Guinea via Reuters

Authorities fear a second landslide and a disease outbreak are looming at the scene of Papua New Guinea’s mass-casualty disaster because of water streams and bodies trapped beneath the tons of debris that swept over a village, a United Nations official said on May 28.

A mass of boulders, earth and splintered trees devastated Yambali in the South Pacific nation’s remote highlands when a limestone mountainside sheared away Friday. The blanket of debris has become more unstable with recent rain and streams trapped between the ground and rubble, said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea.

Also Read | Papua New Guinea orders thousands to evacuate from path of ‘active’ landslide

The U.N. agency has officials at the scene in Enga province helping shelter 1,600 displaced people. The agency estimates 670 villagers died, while Papua New Guinea’s government has told the United Nations it thinks more than 2,000 people were buried. Five bodies had been retrieved from the rubble by Monday.

“We are hearing suggestions that another landslide can happen and maybe 8,000 people need to be evacuated,” Mr. Aktoprak told AP.

“This is a major concern. The movement of the land, the debris, is causing a serious risk, and overall the total number of people that may be affected might be 6,000 or more,” he said. That includes villagers whose source of clean drinking water has been buried and subsistence farmers who lost their vegetable gardens.

“If this debris mass is not stopped, if it continues moving, it can gain speed and further wipe out other communities and villages further down” the mountain, Mr. Aktoprak said.

Scenes of villagers digging with their bare hands through muddy debris in search of their relatives’ remains were also concerning.

“My biggest fear at the moment is corpses are decaying, … water is flowing and this is going to pose serious health risks in relation to contagious diseases,” Mr. Aktoprak said.

Mr. Aktoprak’s agency was raising those concerns at a disaster management virtual meeting of national and international responders Tuesday.

The warning comes as geotechnical experts and heavy earth-moving equipment are expected to reach the site soon.

The Papua New Guinea government on Sunday officially asked the United Nations for additional help and to coordinate contributions from individual nations.

An Australian disaster response team was scheduled to arrive Tuesday in Papua New Guinea, which is Australia’s nearest neighbour. It will include a geohazard assessment team and drones to help map the site.

“Their role will be particularly helping perform geotechnical surveillance to establish the level of the landslip, the instability of the land there, obviously doing some work around identifying where bodies are,” said Murray Watt, Australia’s minister for emergency management.

Australia’s minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said the government would also provide long-term logistical support for clearing debris, recovering bodies and supporting 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’s a really challenging process for everyone involved,” Conroy said.

Earth-moving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s military was expected to arrive soon, after travelling from the city of Lae, 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the east, said Justine McMahon, country director of for humanitarian agency CARE International.

The landslide buried a 200-metre (650-foot) stretch of the province’s main highway. But the highway had been cleared from Yambali to the provincial capital Wabag through to Lae, officials said Tuesday from Enga.

“One of the complicating factors was the destruction of parts of the road plus the instability of the ground, but they have some confidence that they can take in heavy equipment today,” Mr. McMahon said Tuesday.

An excavator donated by a local builder Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving machinery brought in to help villagers who have been digging with shovels and farming tools to find bodies.

Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation with 800 languages and 10 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. File photo
| Photo Credit: PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, expressed grief over the loss of lives and damage wreaked by a devastating landslide in Papua New Guinea, and said India is ready to offer all possible support and assistance.

“Deeply saddened by the loss of lives and damage caused by the devastating landslide in Papua New Guinea. Our heartfelt condolences to the affected families and prayers for speedy recovery of the injured. India is ready to offer all possible support and assistance,” the Prime Minister posted on X.

According to the Papua New Guinea government, more than 2,000 people are believed to have been buried alive in a landslide in the South Pacific island nation, after the side of a mountain came down in the early hours of Friday morning when the village of Yambali was asleep.

The settlement is located in a restive and remote area in the interior of the poor, rural nation off the northern coast of Australia, making search and rescue efforts complicated and hazardous.

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea:

It is now “very unlikely” that more victims of a deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea will be found alive, a UN official told AFP on Tuesday.

“It is not a rescue mission, it is a recovery mission,” UNICEF Papua New Guinea’s Niels Kraaier said.

“It is very unlikely they will have survived.”

Papua New Guinea says some 2,000 people are feared buried in a landslide that destroyed a remote highland community in the early hours of May 24.

With rescue and relief efforts hampered by the remote location, a severed road link, heavy rainfall and nearby tribal violence, Enga provincial administrator Sandis Tsaka warned the disaster could yet worsen. 

About 7,900 people from remote villages are being evacuated, with the ground around the landslide still moving.

“The tragedy is still active,” Tsaka said. “Every hour you can hear rock breaking — it is like a bomb or gunshot and the rocks keep falling down.”

“This was an area heavily populated with homes, businesses, churches and schools, it has been completely wiped out. It is the surface of the moon — it is just rocks,” said Tsaka.

UN Development Programme official Nicholas Booth said many people had refused to evacuate, holding out hope their loved ones would be found. 

The immediate focus was the delivery of aid and clearing up the affected area, he told AFP. 

In the long term, geological surveys would be needed to determine how many people would need to be permanently relocated, Booth said.

“This landslide has blocked the road westward, so not only are there challenges in accessing the village itself, but it does mean the communities beyond that are also cut off.”

The isolated communities, with as many as 30,000 people, had enough supplies for the coming weeks but the situation could worsen in the coming months, he said.

Police and defence forces aim to reach the site on Tuesday and cordon off the most dangerous areas, officials said.

Aid agencies are also trying to get in food, clean water, health supplies and education resources. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

People walk over the damaged Togoba Bridge, located on the road from Mount Hagen to the site of a landslide at Mulitaka village in the region of Maip Mulitaka, in Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province on May 28, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate from the path of a still-active landslide in Papua New Guinea by the government on Tuesday, after parts of a mountain collapsed, burying an initial estimate of more than 2,000 people.

Relief teams in the Pacific nation have been trickling into the difficult-to-access northern Enga region since Friday though officials said the odds of finding survivors were slim.

Residents said they have been using shovels and bare hands to search for survivors.

‘Unstable area’

“The landslide area is very unstable. When we’re up there, we’re regularly hearing big explosions where the mountain is, there is still rocks and debris coming down,” Enga province disaster committee chairperson Sandis Tsaka told Reuters.

“The landslide is still active, as people are digging through the rocks, more is still coming down.”

A state of emergency has been declared across the disaster zone and a neighbouring area, with a combined population of between 4,500 to 8,000, although not all have been ordered to evacuate yet, Tsaka said.

Military personnel have set up checkpoints and are helping move residents to evacuation centres, he said.

Heavy equipment and aid has been slow to arrive because of the remote location, treacherous terrain and tribal unrest in the area forcing the military to escort the convoys of relief teams.

More than 2,000 people were buried in the landslide which occurred early Friday, according to the government.

That is sharply higher than the initial estimates by the U.N., which has put the possible deaths at more than 670.

Former head of the local government Jiman Yandam estimated the dead at 162. Only five bodies have been recovered so far.

The variance in the total number of possible deaths reflects the difficulty in getting an accurate population estimate. The mountainous nation’s last credible census was in 2000 and a 2022 voter roll doesn’t include those under 18.

Tsaka declined to specify the total death toll saying he was not sure how many residents were in the area when the landslide occurred.

“From preliminary estimates, we expect it to be a significant number, in the hundreds and it could go beyond but at this point we’d like to be careful with the number,” he said.

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea:

Papua New Guinea moved to evacuate an estimated 7,900 people from remote villages near the site of a deadly landslide on Tuesday, as authorities warned of further slips.

Some 2,000 people are already feared buried in a landslide that destroyed a remote highland community in the early hours of May 24.

With rescue and relief efforts hampered by the remote location, a severed road link, heavy rainfall and nearby tribal violence, Enga provincial administrator Sandis Tsaka warned the disaster could yet worsen.

Tsaka said authorities were trying to coordinate the evacuation of almost 7,900 people as clumps of limestone, dirt and rock continue to shear off Mount Mungalo.

“The tragedy is still active,” he told AFP. “Every hour you can hear rock breaking — it is like a bomb or gunshot and the rocks keep falling down.”

Satellite images from Monday showed the enormous scale of the disaster.

A vast smear of yellow and grey debris can be seen cutting through verdant bushland and severing the region’s only road.

For four days and nights, locals have been picking through a hellscape of metres-deep churned-up earth, uprooted trees and car-sized boulders, using little more than shovels and digging sticks.

“This was an area heavily populated with homes, businesses, churches and schools, it has been completely wiped out. It is the surface of the moon — it is just rocks,” said Tsaka.

“People are digging with their hands and fingers,” he said, expressing anguish at the unde-resourced government’s inability to meet the enormity of the disaster.

“I am not equipped to deal with this tragedy,” Tsaka admitted.

The Papua New Guinea Defence Forces are trying to access the site with heavy earth-moving equipment.

It is increasingly unlikely that they will find survivors, and so rescuers are now turning to the grim task of body recovery.

Overwhelmed Papua New Guinea authorities were holding an online emergency meeting with United Nations agencies and international allies Tuesday, hoping to kickstart the relief effort.

‘Immediate’ response needed

Papua New Guinea’s national disaster centre has told the United Nations that the initial “landslide buried more than 2,000 people alive”.

According to a letter obtained by AFP, the slide also “caused major destruction to buildings, food gardens and caused major impact on the economic lifeline of the country.”

The scale of the catastrophe required “immediate and collaborative actions from all players”, it added, including the army, and national and provincial responders. 

Australia has announced millions of dollars worth of aid, including emergency relief supplies such as shelters, hygiene kits and support for women and children.

China’s President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden — more accustomed to scrapping for influence in strategically located Papua New Guinea — both offered assistance.

More than 1,000 people have already been displaced by the catastrophe, aid agencies have estimated.

‘Houses are burning’

Locals said the landslip may have been triggered by recent heavy rains. 

Papua New Guinea has one of the wettest climates in the world, and research has found shifting rainfall patterns linked to climate change could exacerbate the risk of landslides.

The death toll has been climbing since the disaster struck as officials reassess the size of the population lying beneath mud and rubble spanning almost four football fields in length.

Estimating the toll is difficult because many people fleeing tribal violence have moved into the area in the past few years, said UN Development Programme official Nicholas Booth.

Five bodies and the leg of a sixth had been pulled from the debris by Saturday night.

An outbreak of tribal fighting unrelated to the disaster was blocking attempts to bring in humanitarian aid from the provincial capital Wabag, the UN migration agency official Serhan Aktoprak said.

“Many houses are burning with others emitting smoke. Women and children have been displaced while all the youth and men in the area were carrying bush knives,” he said, quoting from a report from an aid convoy attempting to reach the disaster site.

The area is located about 600 kilometres (370 miles) from Port Moresby. 
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Villagers search through a landslide in Pogera village, in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea on May 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Papua New Guinea informed the U.N. on May 27 that more than 2,000 people were buried in a massive landslide that swept over a remote village, according to a copy of the letter obtained by AFP.

“The landslide buried more than 2,000 people alive and caused major destruction,” the country’s national disaster centre told the U.N. office in the capital Port Moresby.

A once-bustling remote hillside village in Enga province was almost wiped out when a chunk of Mount Mungalo collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, burying scores of homes and the people sleeping inside them.

The landslide caused “major destruction to buildings, food gardens and caused a major impact on the economic lifeline of the country”, the disaster office said.

The main highway to Porgera Mine was “completely blocked”, it said in the letter, which was received by U.N. officials on Monday morning.

“The situation remains unstable as the landslip continue to shift slowly, posing ongoing danger to both the rescue teams and survivors alike.”

The scale of the catastrophe required “immediate and collaborative actions from all players”, it said, including the army, and national and regional responders.

It called on the U.N. to inform Papua New Guinea’s development partners “and other international friends” of the latest situation.

Assistance should be coordinated through the disaster centre, it said.

Villagers search through a landslide in Pogera village, in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, on May 26, 2024. The International Organization for Migration feared Sunday the death toll from a massive landslide is much worse than what authorities initially estimated.
| Photo Credit: AP

The International Organization for Migration on May 26 increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea to more than 670 as emergency responders and traumatized relatives gave up hope that any survivors will now be found.

Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in the South Pacific island nation, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.

“They are estimating that more than 670 people (are) under the soil at the moment,” Mr. Aktoprak told The Associated Press.

Local officials had initially put the death toll on Friday at 100 or more. Only five bodies and a leg of a sixth victim had been recovered by Sunday.

Relief crews were moving survivors to safer ground on Sunday as tons of unstable earth and tribal warfare, which is rife in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, threatened the rescue effort.

The national government meanwhile is considering whether it needs to officially request more international support.

Crews have given up hope of finding survivors under earth and rubble 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep.

“People are coming to terms with this so there is a serious level of grieving and mourning,” Mr. Aktoprak said.

He said the new estimated death toll was “not solid” because it was based on the average size of the region’s families per household. He would not speculate on the possibility that the actual toll could be higher.

“It is difficult to say. We want to be quite realistic,” Mr. Aktoprak said. “We do not want to come up with any figures that would inflate the reality.”

Government authorities were establishing evacuation centers on safer ground on either side of the massive swath of debris that covers an area the size of three to four football fields and has cut the main highway through the province.

Beside the blocked highway, convoys that have transported food, water and other essential supplies since Saturday to the devastated village 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the provincial capital, Wabag, have faced risks related to tribal fighting in Tambitanis village, about halfway along the route. Papua New Guinea soldiers were providing security for the convoys.

Eight locals were killed in a clash between two rival clans on Saturday in a longstanding dispute unrelated to the landslide. Around 30 homes and five retail businesses were burned down in the fighting, local officials said.

Mr. Aktoprak said he did not expect tribal combatants would target the convoys but noted that opportunistic criminals might take advantage of the mayhem to do so.

“This could basically end up in carjacking or robbery,” Aktoprak said. “There is not only concern for the safety and security of the personnel, but also the goods because they may use this chaos as a means to steal.”

Longtime tribal warfare has cast doubt on the official estimate that almost 4,000 people were living in the village when a side of Mount Mungalo fell away. The count was years old and did not take into account people who had relocated to the village more recently to flee clan violence that goverment authorities are unable to contain.

Justine McMahon, country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International, said moving survivors to “more stable ground” was an immediate priority along with providing them with food, water and shelter. The military was leading those efforts.

The numbers of injured and missing were still being assessed on Sunday. Seven people including a child had received medical treatment by Saturday, but officials had no details on their conditions.

Papua New Guinea Defense Minister Billy Joseph and the government’s National Disaster Center director Laso Mana were flying from Port Moresby by helicopter to Wabag on Sunday to gain a firsthand perspective of what is needed.

Mr. Aktoprak expected the government would decide by Tuesday whether it would officially request more international help.

The United States and Australia, a near neighbor and Papua New Guinea’s most generous provider of foreign aid, are among governments that have publicly stated their readiness to do more to help responders.

Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation with 800 languages and 10 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers.

People gather at the site of a landslide in Maip Mulitaka in Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province on May 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

More than 100 people are believed to have been killed Friday, May 24, 2024, in a landslide in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Also read: Can large landslides be remotely detected in real-time?

The landslide reportedly hit Kaokalam Village in Enga Province, about 600 km northwest of the South Pacific island nation’s capital of Port Moresby, at roughly 3 am local time, ABC reported.

Residents say current estimates of the death toll are above 100, although authorities have not confirmed this figure. Villagers said the number of people killed could be much higher.

Social media video show locals pulling out buried bodies

The Papua New Guinea government and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cites .

With 10 million people, it also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to 27 million.