Villagers search through a landslide in Yambali, Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, Sunday, May 26, 2024.
Mohamud Omer/AP/IOM
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Mohamud Omer/AP/IOM
MELBOURNE, Australia — More than 2,000 people are believed to have been buried alive by Friday’s landslides in Papua New Guinea, a government official told the United Nations and has made a formal request for international assistance.
The figure released by the government is about three times the United Nations estimate of 670 deaths from landslides in the mountainous interior of the South Pacific island nation. So far, only six remains have been found.
In a letter to the U.N. resident coordinator reviewed by The Associated Press on Sunday, Lucetta Lasso Mana, acting director of the South Pacific island nation’s national disaster center, said the landslide “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “Major damage.”
Estimates of the number of casualties have varied widely since the disaster, and it’s unclear how officials arrived at the number of people affected.
The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and playing a leading role in the international response, did not change the death toll estimate of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.
Serhan Aktoprak, head of the UN migration agency’s mission to Papua New Guinea, said: “We cannot dispute the government’s advice, but we cannot comment on it either.”
“With a project of this magnitude, this number will remain fluid over time,” Aktoplak added.
Officials in Yambali village and Enga province calculated that more than 150 houses were buried by landslides and the death toll was 670. The previous estimate was 60 households.
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape’s office did not respond to a request on Monday to explain the basis for the government’s estimate of 2,000.
Determining the scale of the disaster is difficult because of harsh local conditions, including the village’s remoteness, lack of telecommunications and tribal warfare across the province, which means international rescuers and aid convoys require military escorts.
The landslide also buried a 200-meter (650-foot) section of the province’s main highway under rubble 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep, posing a major obstacle to rescue workers.
Mana said the landslide would have a significant impact on the entire country’s economy.
Manner wrote in a letter to the United Nations that “the situation remains unstable” due to changes on the ground and “poses an ongoing danger to both rescue teams and survivors.”
On Sunday, an excavator donated by a local builder became the first heavy earth-moving machinery to help villagers dig with shovels and farm tools in search of the bodies. Working around still-moving debris is dangerous.
On Sunday, Mana and Papua New Guinea Defense Minister Billy Joseph flew in an Australian military helicopter from the capital Port Moresby to Yambali, 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest to get the needed first-hand information .
Mana’s office posted a photo of him in Yambali, handing a check for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to local officials to buy emergency supplies for 4,000 displaced survivors.
The purpose of the visit is to decide whether the Papua New Guinea government needs to formally request more international support.
Earthmoving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s military is being transported to the disaster site, 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae.
Traumatized villagers are divided over whether heavy machinery should be allowed to dig up and potentially further damage the bodies of buried relatives, officials said.
