A collapsed mountainside left a debris field 20-26 feet deep, covering 77 square miles
The Papua New Guinea government said 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, reports the Associated Press. That is approximately triple the initial U.N. estimates of 670.
Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived at the number of people affected. 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.
The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday.
Aktoprak said in a media interview that the community in Yambali village, which is situated at the foot of a mountain in the remote Enga Province, is buried under between 6 to 8 meters of soil, or 20 to 26 feet. Some of the boulders that buried houses and cut off a major highway were larger than shipping containers, reports The New York Times. One hundred and fifty houses are believed to be buried. Rescuers heard screams from beneath the earth but have only been able to locate six survivors, reports the BBC. To date, five bodies have been recovered.
Defense Minister Billy Joseph said at least 4,000 people had been living in the six remote villages in the Maip-Mulitaka area in Enga province, where the landslide occurred in the early hours of Friday while most were asleep, although the number could be substantially higher.
Papua New Guinea makes up the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, with the western half belonging to Indonesia. It sits in the Pacific Ocean’s so-called “Ring of Fire,” a belt of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. It is a diverse, developing nation with 800 languages and at least 10 million people, who are mostly subsistence farmers.
Torrential rains and strong winds during March and April triggered flooding and landslides throughout the nation. On March 24, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck near the northern town of Ambunti, shaking villages along the Sepik River and in surrounding areas already inundated by the flooding.
This post is an excerpt from a longer article I wrote for the Deseret News. You can find it here.
