More Than 2,000 Feared Dead In Papua New Guinea Landslide

The Papua New Guinea government issued a plea for international assistance in a rescue effort after a devastating landslide wiped out a remote highland village, with over 2,000 individuals feared buried under the debris.

Scores of homes and sleeping residents were engulfed when a portion of Mount Mungalo collapsed in the early hours of Friday morning, nearly wiping out the once-thriving hillside community in Enga province.

“The landslide buried more than 2,000 people alive and caused major destruction to buildings, and food gardens and caused major impact on the economic lifeline of the country,” Papua New Guinea’s national disaster centre said in a letter to the UN obtained by AFP.

The UN resident coordinator’s office in Port Moresby was informed that the main highway to the sizable Porgera gold mine had been “completely blocked.”

The disaster centre noted that the landslip was “shifting slowly, presenting an ongoing hazard to both the rescue teams and survivors alike.”

The disaster centre emphasized the need for immediate and collaborative actions from all stakeholders, including the army and national and provincial responders, given the scale of the catastrophe.

The centre urged the United Nations to notify Papua New Guinea’s development partners and other international allies about the crisis.

The UN has scheduled an urgent virtual meeting with international governments on Tuesday to coordinate relief efforts for the disaster in Papua New Guinea.