Not less than 2,000 people are feared to have been buried by last week’s massive landslide in Papua New Guinea. , according to the country’s National Disaster Centre, as survivors recounted the horror of losing so many loved ones.
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 them.
The landslide occurred in the mountainous Enga region in northern Papua New Guinea, and the latest missing figure is a sharp rise from earlier estimates.
More than two days after the landslide rumbled down the face of Mount Mungalo, mud-caked villagers in bare feet are still searching for their loved ones using shovels, axes and other makeshift tools.
“As of Sunday, there is an estimate of 150-plus houses now buried,” adding that “670-plus people are assumed dead,” said UN migration agency representative Serhan Aktoprak.
Locals have been left reeling after tonnes of rock and mud smashed into their homes as they slept. Rescuers have struggled to reach such a remote part of what is already one of Asia’s poorest nations, leaving locals with little choice but to dig through the collapsed mountainside with whatever tools they have.
According to CNN, a resident of the community, Evit Kambu, shared that she had lost more than a dozen family members in the disaster.
“I have 18 of my family members buried under the debris and soil that I am standing on, and a lot more family members in the village I cannot count.
“I am the landowner here… but I cannot retrieve the bodies, so I am standing here helplessly.”
A local community leader, Miok Michael, also told CNN that it was likely there were few survivors
“People are gathering and mourning,” he said.
“People have been digging since day one but can’t locate bodies as huge rocks cover them. Only machines will do.”
Soon after the disaster occurred, the United Nations said as many as 100 may have died. That was later revised to 670, according to estimates from the Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration in the country.
But that may now be a significant underestimate according to the latest projection from Papua New Guinea’s disaster agency.
“The landslide buried more than 2000 people alive and caused major destruction to buildings and food gardens and caused a major impact on the economic lifeline of the country,”the Acting Director of the National Disaster Centre, Lusete Laso Mana, said in a letter to the UN.
