As relief workers and locals faced dangerous conditions in their desperate hunt for survivors, a UN official told AFP on Sunday that more than 670 people are thought to have died following a major landslide in Papua New Guinea.
“There are an estimated 150-plus houses now buried” said UN migration agency official Serhan Aktoprak, 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 eveyrone involved,” added Aktoprak, who is based in Port Moresby.
The once-bustling hillside village in Enga province was almost completely obliterated when the landslide struck in the early hours of Friday morning, burying scores of homes and the people sleeping inside.
“People are using digging sticks, spades, large agricultural forks to remove the bodies buried under the soil,” Aktoprak said.
He said that the disaster had caused more than 1,000 people to be homeless and that water supplies and food gardens had nearly totally disappeared.
At first, officials and humanitarian organizations believed that between 100 and 300 individuals might have died in the accident.
Disaster relief personnel on the ground discovered more people were residing in the community than first thought, hence the death toll was increased, according to Aktoprak.
