Stringer/AFP/Getty Images
People gather at the site of a landslide in Enga province, Papua New Guinea.
CNN
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A massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week is feared to have buried as many as 2,000 people, and rescuers are rushing to search remote areas for survivors, according to the country’s National Disaster Centre.
The landslide occurred in the Enga mountain region of northern Papua New Guinea on Friday, and the latest figures are a significant increase from previous estimates.
Shortly after the disaster, the United Nations said the death toll could reach 100. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) mission to the country later revised that figure upwards to 670.
But the latest projections from Papua New Guinea’s disaster management agency suggest that may be a significant underestimate.
“The landslides buried more than 2,000 people alive, caused extensive damage to buildings and gardens and dealt a major blow to the country’s economic infrastructure,” Lusete Raso Mana, acting director of the National Disaster Centre, said in a letter to the UN.
“The situation remains unstable as the landslide continues to move slowly, posing a continuing risk to both rescue teams and survivors,” he added, saying the main highway into the area had been completely cut off by the landslide.
“Following an examination conducted by the team, it was determined that the damage was extensive and required immediate, coordinated action from all players.”
The landslide struck the remote village of Kaokalam, about 600 km northwest of the capital Port Moresby, at about 3 a.m. local time on Friday, leaving a trail of rubble the size of four football fields that humanitarian workers said.
More than 150 homes in the village of Yambari were buried under rubble, authorities said Sunday, and the area remains “extremely dangerous” as rocks continue to fall and the ground is under ever-increasing pressure, they said.
01:20 – Source: CNN
Aerial footage shows aftermath of massive landslide in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea is home to about 10 million people, and vast mountainous terrain and a lack of roads make it difficult to access the affected areas.
Pierre Rognon, an associate professor in the University of Sydney’s school of civil engineering, said finding survivors after the landslide would be “particularly challenging” for rescuers.
“Landslides can result in collapsed buildings and people being buried under tens of metres of geological material,” he said.
“To make matters worse, earthquakes can shift buildings, trapping people for hundreds of metres. No one can predict exactly where survivors are or where to start searching.”
The cause of the landslide is unclear, but Alan Collins, a professor of geology at the University of Adelaide, said it occurred in an area that has seen “significant rainfall”.
“The landslides don’t appear to be directly caused by the earthquakes, but frequent earthquakes caused by plate collisions can create steep slopes and tall mountains that can become very unstable,” Collins said.
He said rainfall could have changed the minerals that make up the bedrock, weakening the rocks that make up the steep hillsides.
“Vegetation mitigates this as tree roots stabilise the ground, but deforestation can destroy the biological web and make landslides more frequent,” he said.
