Papua New Guinea landslide killed more than 670 people, UN migration agency estimates

The International Organization for Migration on Sunday raised its death toll estimate by one massive landslide in Papua New Guinea to more than 670 as emergency workers and traumatized relatives gave up hope that any survivors would be found.

Serhan Aktoprak, head of the UN migration agency’s mission in the South Pacific island nation, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga province officials that more than 150 homes were buried by the Friday slip. The previous estimate was 60 houses.

“They estimate that more than 670 people are underground right now,” Aktoprak told the Associated Press.

Local authorities initially put Friday’s death toll at 100 or more. Only five bodies and a leg from a sixth victim had been recovered by Sunday, when an excavator donated by a local builder became the first piece of mechanical earthmoving equipment to join the recovery effort.

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

About 250 additional homes have been condemned since the landslide due to the still-shifting ground, leaving about 1,250 people homeless, authorities said.

Meanwhile, the national government is considering whether it needs to officially request more international support.

Crews gave up hope of finding survivors beneath the earth and debris 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep.

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

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

“It’s hard to say. We want to be quite realistic,” Aktoprak said. “We don’t want to present numbers that inflate reality.”

Government authorities were establishing evacuation centers on safer ground on both sides of the huge swath of rubble that covers an area the size of three to four football fields and cuts across the main road through the province.

Beside the blocked road, convoys carrying food, water and other essential supplies since Saturday to the devastated village, 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the provincial capital Wabag, faced risks related to tribal fighting in the village of Tambitanis, halfway along the way. route. Papua New Guinea soldiers provided security for the convoys.

Eight local residents were killed in a clash between two rival clans on Saturday in a long-running dispute unrelated to the landslide. About 30 homes and five retail businesses were torched in the fighting, local officials said.

Aktoprak said he did not expect tribal fighters to attack the convoys, but noted that opportunistic criminals could take advantage of the chaos to do so.

“It could basically end up in robbery or carjacking,” Aktoprak said. “There is not only concern for the safety of personnel, but also for property, because they could use this chaos as a means of stealing.”

Long-running tribal warfare has cast doubt on the official estimate that nearly 4,000 people lived in the village when one side of Mount Mungalo fell. The count was years old and did not take into account people who moved to the village more recently to escape clan violence that government authorities are unable to contain.

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

The number of injured and missing people was still being assessed on Sunday. Seven people, including a child, had received medical treatment as of Saturday, but authorities did not provide details about their conditions.

Papua New Guinea Defense Minister Billy Joseph and the director of the government’s National Disaster Center, Laso Mana, flew from Port Moresby by helicopter to Wabag on Sunday to get a first-hand perspective of what is needed.

Aktoprak expected the government to decide by Tuesday whether it would officially request more international aid.

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

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