Rod McGurk, The Associated Press
34 minutes ago
Villagers search the remains of a landslide in the village of Yambari in the Papua New Guinea highlands, Sunday, May 26, 2024. The International Organization for Migration said Sunday it fears the death toll from a massive landslide may be much higher than authorities initially estimated. (Mohamed Omer/International Organization for Migration via The Associated Press)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Papua New Guinea's government says more than 2,000 people were buried in a landslide Friday and has formally requested international aid.
The government's figure is nearly three times the UN estimate of 670.
In a letter dated Sunday to the U.N. resident coordinator and seen by The Associated Press, the acting director of the South Pacific island nation's national disaster center said the landslides “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “extensive damage.”
Casualty estimates have fluctuated widely since the disaster and it was not immediately clear how authorities arrived at the number of people affected.
This is breaking news. See AP's previous coverage below.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia prepared to send aircraft and other equipment Monday to the site of a devastating landslide in the South Pacific country of Papua New Guinea, saying overnight rain in the country's mountainous interior could dangerously destabilize tons of debris that have buried hundreds of villagers.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said Australian officials have been in talks with their Papua New Guinean counterparts since Friday when a mountainside collapse occurred in the village of Yambari in Enga province, killing 670 people, according to a United Nations estimate. Only six bodies have been recovered so far.
“The specifics of the assistance we will provide will be made clear over the next few days,” Marles told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We obviously have the airlift capability to get people there and there may be other equipment that can be brought in in terms of search and rescue and we are in discussions with Papua New Guinea at the moment,” Marles added.
Papua New Guinea is Australia's closest neighbor and the two countries are building closer defense ties as part of Australia's efforts to counter growing Chinese influence in the region. Australia is also the former colony's most generous donor of foreign aid, having gained independence in 1975.
Heavy rain fell for two hours overnight in the provincial capital, Wabag, 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the affected villages. Weather forecasts were not immediately available from Yambari, where communications are limited.
But emergency responders were concerned about the impact the rain would have on an already unstable pile of rubble that lies 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep over an area the size of three to four football fields.
The excavator, donated by a local construction company on Sunday, was the first of the heavy machinery brought in to help villagers who continue to dig with shovels and farm tools in a dangerous attempt to find bodies, working around the still-shifting rubble.
Serhan Aktoprak, the International Organization for Migration representative in Papua New Guinea, said water was seeping between the rubble and the ground below, raising the risk of further landslides.
He did not expect to know the weather conditions in Yambari until Monday afternoon.
“What I'm really worried about personally is the weather, the weather, the weather,” Aktoprak said, “because the land is still sliding. Rocks are falling,” he added.
Papua New Guinea's Defense Minister Billy Joseph and Raso Mana, director of the government's national disaster centre, flew in an Australian military helicopter to Yambari, 600 km (370 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, on Sunday to see first-hand what is needed.
Mana's office posted a photo of him handing over a cheque for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to local officials in Yambari to purchase emergency supplies for 4,000 displaced survivors.
The purpose of the visit was to determine whether the PNG government needed to formally request further international assistance.
Earth-moving equipment used by the Papua New Guinea military was being transported to the disaster site 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae.
Officials said traumatised villagers were divided over whether to use heavy machinery to dig up the bodies of their buried relatives, potentially damaging them further.
