“A mountain fell on them,” says a rescuer at the PNG landslide site

SYDNEY:

Families in the village of Yambali in Papua New Guinea were sleeping peacefully in their beds when a “mountain” of rubble buried them alive in a giant landslide, a UN rescue worker at the scene and the country’s prime minister said.

For five days, survivors have been using shovels and bare hands to dig through mud and debris nearly two stories high and covering three to four football fields in the area, which has buried about 2,000 people.

Rescue workers say the chances of finding survivors are slim.

“It’s basically a mountain that has fallen on their heads,” said Mate Bagossy, who is with the United Nations Development Program helping aid efforts in remote Yambali in northern Enga province.

Estimates of the death toll varied widely, with the government saying more than 2,000 were buried alive, while the UN estimated around 670 were missing. Community leaders put the number at around 200. Only six bodies have been recovered.

“Our people in this village slept for the last time, not knowing that they would take their last breath as they slept peacefully,” Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told parliament on Wednesday.

“Nature threw a devastating landslide, submerging or covering the village,” Marape said.

The prime minister blamed “extraordinary rainfall” and changes in weather patterns for the landslide and multiple disasters that have hit the Pacific island nation this year.

Satellite images and photos from the UN team and local villagers give a sense of the scale of Friday’s landslide.

“It’s a whole village and shops and a gas station and a shelter and the church and the school … all of that is gone,” said Bagossy, one of the few foreign workers who arrived in the village earlier this week. .

There are at least six to eight meters (20-26 feet) of rubble covering the area, he said, adding that the village lodge was partially visible because the landslide covered only one section.

“But everything else is under the rubble,” he said.

Unfortunately, Bagossy admitted that the chances of finding survivors were almost nil.

Only one excavator has reached the site but is not being used due to concerns that the ground is still unstable. Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate due to further landslides on the mountain.

Geologists and geological hazard experts from Australia and New Zealand are on their way to the village to make an urgent assessment.

“The entire area needs to be surveyed to understand the risk of further landslides in the area and its surroundings. It is very complicated to bring heavy machinery if the ground is not stable. The entire road has been submerged,” Bagossi said.

The United Nations migration agency has warned of the risk of infectious diseases from the decomposing bodies.

“Every minute, the bodies buried under the debris are decomposing, with water being squeezed between the ground and the huge debris covering an area of ​​three to four football fields continues to leak, this is a high health risk,” Serhan said. Aktoprak. the agency’s chief of mission in Papua New Guinea said in an emailed statement.