More than 2,000 people are feared to have been buried in a Papua New Guinea landslip that demolished a remote highland community, the government said yesterday, as it called for international assistance in the rescue operation. The once-bustling hillside town in Enga province was nearly wiped out when a piece of Mount Mungalo collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, drowning scores of homes and the people sleeping inside them.
"The landslide buried more than 2,000 people alive, destroyed buildings and food gardens, and had a significant impact on the country's economic lifeline," Papua New Guinea's national disaster centre said in a letter to the UN obtained by AFP. According to the UN resident coordinator's office in Port Moresby, the major highway to the massive Porgera gold mine was "completely blocked".
The disaster centre stated that the landslide was still "shifting slowly, posing an ongoing danger to both rescue teams and survivors alike." The magnitude of the disaster requires "immediate and collaborative actions from all players," including the army, national and provincial rescuers."The centre also called on the United Nations to inform Papua New Guinea's development partners "and other foreign friends" of the crisis."
