In this photo provided by the International Organization for Migration, an injured person is carried on a stretcher seeking medical attention after a landslide in Yambali village, Papua New Guinea, Friday, May 24, 2024. More than 100 people are believed to be trapped. Officials said emergency response measures were underway after a landslide buried a village and caused casualties.
Benjamin Sippa/AP/IOM
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Benjamin Sippa/AP/IOM
MELBOURNE, Australia — The International Organization for Migration on Sunday raised its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea to more than 670 people.
Serhan Aktoprak, head of the U.N. migration agency’s mission to the South Pacific island nation, said the revised death toll was based on calculations by officials in the village of Yambali and Enga province, where Friday’s mountain collapse The landslide has buried more than 150 houses. The previous estimate was 60 households.
“They estimate that more than 670 people are currently buried underground,” Aktoplak told The Associated Press.
Local officials initially put Friday’s death toll at 100 or more. As of Sunday, only five bodies and a leg of the sixth victim had been recovered.
Emergency workers in Papua New Guinea were moving survivors to safer ground on Sunday as massive land instability and tribal fighting in the country’s highlands threatened rescue efforts.
Meanwhile, the South Pacific island nation’s government is considering whether to formally request more international support.
Aktoplak said rescuers had given up hope of finding survivors under rubble 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) underground.
“People are coming to terms with this, so there’s serious sadness and mourning,” he said.
Government authorities are setting up evacuation centers in safer areas on either side of the vast expanse of rubble, which covers an area the size of three to four football fields and cuts off the main highway through the province.
“It’s very dangerous to work on the rubble, and the ground is still sliding,” Aktoplak said.
In addition to the blocked highway, convoys carrying food, water and other necessities since Saturday to the devastated village 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the provincial capital Wabagh have also faced conflicts with tribal groups in the village of Tambitanis. Fighting-related risks, the village of Tambitanis is located midway along the highway. Papua New Guinean soldiers provide security for the convoy.
A long-running dispute unrelated to a landslide erupted on Saturday between two rival tribes, leaving eight locals dead. Local officials said about 30 houses and five retail stores were burned in the fighting.
Aktoplak said he did not expect tribal fighters to target the convoy, but noted that opportunistic criminals could take advantage of the chaos to do so.
“This could basically lead to a carjacking or robbery,” Aktoplak said. “People are worried not only about the safety of people but also about the safety of goods as they may use this chaos as a means of theft.”
Protracted tribal warfare has cast doubt on official estimates that nearly 4,000 people were living in the village when the side of Mongalo Mountain collapsed.
Justin McMahon, country director for humanitarian agency Care International, said the immediate priority was to move survivors to “more stable locations” while providing them with food, water and shelter. The military is leading these efforts.
The number of injured and missing people was still being assessed Sunday. As of Saturday, seven people, including a child, had been treated, but officials gave no details about their conditions.
Medical facilities were buried, along with homes, several small businesses, a hotel, schools and gas stations, officials said.
McMahon said there are other health facilities in the area, the provincial government is sending health personnel and the World Health Organization is mobilizing staff.
“There will be some support, but it’s such a fragmented field that I think it’s going to be a pretty challenging situation,” McMahon said. “The scale of this disaster is enormous.”
Although Papua New Guinea is located in the tropics, the village is 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level and temperatures are much cooler.
Papua New Guinea’s Defense Minister Billy Joseph and the director of the government’s National Disaster Center Rathore Mana flew by helicopter from Port Moresby to Wabagh on Sunday to get first-hand information on the supplies needed.
Aktoplak expects the government to decide on Tuesday whether to formally request more international aid.
The United States and Australia are Papua New Guinea’s most generous providers of foreign aid, and their governments have publicly expressed a willingness to do more to help relief workers.
Papua New Guinea is a diverse developing country with 800 languages spoken and a population of 10 million, the majority of whom are subsistence farmers.
