By Sam McKeith and Rod McGuirk
Up to 300 people and more than 1000 houses are believed buried by a massive landslide that levelled a remote village in northern Papua New Guinea on Friday.
The landslide hit a village in Enga Province, about 600 kilometres north-west of capital Port Moresby, about 3am when people were asleep.
People gather at the site of a landslide in Maip Mulitaka in Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province.Credit: AFP
The Papua New Guinea Post Courier reported the increased death toll and that 1182 houses were destroyed, citing comments from a member of the country’s parliament, Aimos Akem. Akem did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The ABC reported on Saturday that four bodies had been retrieved after emergency teams reached the sparsely populated area. The emergency response was under way and the death toll was expected to rise.
Residents from surrounding areas said boulders and trees from a collapsed mountainside buried parts of the community and left it isolated.
The chief of the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea, Serhan Aktoprak, said the landslide struck Yambali village, which is at the foot of a mountain about two hours’ drive from Enga’s provincial capital of Wabag.
An assessment team reported “suggestions” that 100 people were dead and 60 houses buried by the mountainside, he said.
“The scale is so big, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be more casualties than the earlier reported 100,” Aktoprak said. “If 60 houses had been destroyed, then the number of casualties would definitely be much higher than the 100.”
Yambali sits along a road leading from the capital that is now blocked, hampering relief efforts, he said.
“The land still continues sliding; therefore it makes it very difficult to operate on,” he said, citing firsthand reports from IOM staff and others deployed from the provincial capital to the affected village.
People cross over the landslide area to get to the other side in Yambali village, Papua New Guinea, on Friday.Credit: IOM/AP
The area affected covered the size of three to four football fields, and that the village was home to 3895 people. He said some houses in the village were spared.
Aktoprak spoke by phone from the capital, Port Moresby.
Water was inaccessible in the affected area, power lines were down, and villagers were likely to struggle with accessing food, Aktoprak said. “Immediate needs are shelter, other non-food items [like] blankets and bedsheets, food and drinking water,” he added.
“Everyone is desperately looking for missing family members,” he said. “My fear is that the death toll could be very high,” the New York Times quoted him as saying.
A convoy left the provincial capital of Wabag carrying food, water and other essentials to the devastated village 60 kilometres away on Saturday, Aktoprak said.
Villager Andrew Ruing said the survivors were in desperate need.
“People – they cannot cry or they cannot do anything because it’s difficult for them,” Ruing said in a video shown by the ABC. “Because such a situation has never happened in history. And therefore, we are calling on the national government, the people on the ground, or the business houses, the heights from everywhere, anywhere – we are seeking assistance from.”
More than six villages had been impacted by the landslide in the province’s Mulitaka region, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said on Saturday.
“Australia’s High Commission in Port Moresby is in close contact with PNG authorities for further assessments on the extent of the damage and casualties,” a DFAT spokesperson said in a statement.
ABC had earlier named the affected village as Kaokalam. CARE Australia confirmed the reports of a landslide in Yambali village. In a statement, it said highway access near Yambali was obstructed and hindering assessment and relief efforts.
An injured person is carried on a stretcher to seek medical assistance after a landslide in Yambali village, PNG.Credit: IOM/AP
Prime Minister James Marape said he would release information about the scale of the destruction and loss of life when it became available.
All food gardens that sustain the village’s subsistence farming population were destroyed and the three streams that provide drinking water were buried by the landslide.
Australia, Papua New Guinea’s most generous provider of foreign aid, said the government stood ready to help.
“All Australians grieve for our brothers and sisters in Papua New Guinea after the terrible landslide,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote on X on Saturday.
“We send our deepest condolences to those affected. Australia stands ready to assist.”
Earlier, Foreign Minister Penny Wong posted: “The loss of life and destruction is devastating. As friends and partners, Australia stands ready to assist in relief and recovery efforts.”
Videos on social media showed residents pulling bodies from under rocks and trees.
Belinda Kora, a Port Moresby-based ABC reporter, on Friday said helicopters were the only way of accessing the village, which is in the mountainous interior region known as the Highlands.
Telecommunications are poor in the country, particularly outside Port Moresby, where government data show 56 per cent of the nation’s social media users reside. Only 1.66 million people across the country use the internet and 85 per cent of the population lives in rural areas.
Reuters, AP