When a magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook flood-ravaged northern Papua New Guinea on Monday, authorities claimed that at least five people had died and that an estimated 1,000 homes had been demolished. Disaster teams were flooding into the area.
“So far, around 1,000 homes have been lost,” said East Sepik Governor Allan Bird, adding that emergency crews were “still assessing the impact” from a tremor that “damaged most parts of the province”.
When the earthquake struck early on Sunday morning, dozens of villages perched along the banks of the Sepik River in the country were already experiencing significant water.
Christopher Tamari, the provincial police commander, told AFP that although five deaths had been reported, there “may be more.”
Images captured in the wake of the earthquake saw ruined wooden homes crumbling into the nearby knee-deep flooding.
Situated atop the seismic “Ring of Fire,” an arc of strong tectonic activity across Southeast Asia and the Pacific basin, Papua New Guinea experiences frequent earthquakes.
In the sparsely populated jungle highlands, they rarely inflict extensive damage, but they can set off devastating landslides.
The nine million people that make up the island nation reside mostly outside of large towns and cities, where search and rescue operations can be severely hampered by the challenging terrain and lack of sealed roads.
