More than 670 people are now believed to have died after a massive landslide in Yambali village in Enga province of Papua New Guinea on Friday, news agency AFP has reported, citing a UN official.
“There are an estimated 150-plus houses now buried” said UN migration agency official Serhan Aktoprak on Sunday, adding that “670-plus people are assumed dead”.
“The situation is terrible with the land still sliding. The water is running, and this is creating a massive risk for everyone involved,” Aktoprak, who is based in Port Moresby, told AFP.
#BREAKING UN raises Papua New Guinea landslide death toll estimate to 670 pic.twitter.com/XPNnTmNr4Y
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 26, 2024
At first, local authorities on Friday estimated the death toll to be at least 100. By Sunday, only five bodies and the leg of a sixth victim had been found.
Aktoprak also revealed to AFP that the formerly bustling village had lost over a thousand residents. The water supplies and food gardens have been nearly totally destroyed by the landslide.
Additionally, he stated that the search for survivors beneath the debris, which is 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep, has been abandoned by the rescue teams.
“People are coming to terms with this so there is a serious level of grieving and mourning,” he said.
Emergency responders began moving survivors to safer ground on Sunday as tons of unstable earth and tribal warfare, which is rife in the country’s Highlands, threatened the rescue effort, reported AP.
Justine McMahon, country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International, told AP that moving survivors to “more stable ground” was an immediate priority along with providing them with food, water and shelter.
“There will be some support, but it’s such a spread-out area that I think it will be quite a challenging situation,” McMahon said. “The scale of this disaster is quite immense.”
