Papua New Guinea: UN estimates landslide kills 670 people

Catastrophic loss of life. A United Nations official in Papua New Guinea put the death toll at 670 this Sunday from a landslide that buried a village in the South Pacific country overnight from Thursday to Friday.

“It is estimated that more than 150 houses were flooded and 670 people were killed,” Serhan Aktoprak, a U.N. migration official based in Port Moresby, Papua New’s capital, told AFP on Sunday.

The disaster struck around 3am (1700 GMT Thursday) in Enga province in the center of the country on Thursday night, catching villagers by surprise who were buried under piles of mud and rubble. According to local authorities, while they were sleeping. In some places, the landslide – a mixture of rocks and earth that broke off Mount Mungalo – is eight meters thick.

“Powerful Noise”

“Suddenly there was a big landslide. The mountain suddenly collapsed while the inhabitants were still sleeping.” Their homes were “completely destroyed,” Stephen Kanday, a local official, explained yesterday. Others “heard a loud sound of falling stones and ran away.” Still others managed to escape, but died along the way due to falling trees and landslides, he explains.

Tribal violence has also made access to areas surrounding the landslide difficult, aid workers said Sunday. These rivalries erupted along the only access route to the disaster area, but they are “not related to the landslide,” Serhan Aktoprak said, adding that the Papua New Guinea Army had mobilized a “security escort” to ensure the passage of aid convoys. .

Residents in the region say the landslide must have been triggered by heavy rains that have hit the region in recent weeks. Located south of the equator, the region regularly experiences heavy, deadly rainfall. In March, at least 23 people were killed in a landslide in a neighboring province.