Rescue turns to recovery in Papua New Guinea landslide disaster

by Mick the Ram

Authorities in Papua New Guinea have now ruled out finding any survivors under the mound of rubble, created after parts of a mountain in the Maip-Mulitaka area of the country’s northern Enga province, collapsed onto the Yambali village, at around 3am on Friday 24 May – approaching a full week ago now.

The timing of the massive landslide meant the majority of villagers were sleeping when the disaster struck, although the exact number of dead is unclear, with estimates ranging between several hundred, up into the thousands.

With the last credible census conducted as far back as 2000, incomplete voter records and checks with local leaders are being used to try and determine just how many people could be buried by almost two storeys of debris, 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep, covering an area the size of around four football pitches, interspersed with an accumulation of thick mud.

For the first five days survivors were using just picks and shovels to try and clear the rubble, which included huge rocks too heavy to lift by hand.

Although a local builder made an excavator available earlier in the week, cultural sensitivities around the use of such machines near bodies meant it was initially rejected.

More heavy equipment and aid has now arrived and has begun to be used in the treacherous, unstable mountain terrain. To further hamper rescue/recovery teams a bridge also collapsed on the main road toward the disaster area.  

Military personnel from Australia and New Zealand, engineers, geology experts and public health officials are now at the site, to assist.

Those residents that remain are on alert for potential evacuation in case the landslide shifts further downhill. It is believed that around 1,650 people have been displaced, with one in five under the age of six.

Prime Minister speaks out

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, has blamed “extraordinary rainfall” and changes to weather patterns for the landslide which has buried an entire village and entered the nearby creeks and streams, contaminating all primary water sources, posing a significant risk for outbreaks of disease.

“Our people in that village went to sleep for the last time, not knowing they would breathe their last breath as they were sleeping peacefully. Nature threw a disastrous landslip, submerged or covered the village,” Mr Marape told parliament in a meeting yesterday (29 May).

He added that the phenomenal amount of rain had caused flooding in river areas, sea level rise in coastal areas and multiple landslips

Slow progress hampered by tribal fighting

So far just six bodies have been brought out, but it is thought that more than 2,000 people may have been buried alive. A total of 150 structures were estimated to have been swallowed up by the landslide.

To add to the complications, a long-running tribal conflict nearby has made it harder for aid workers to access the site, with eight people killed and 30 houses torched in fighting, less than 48 hours after the tragedy, with at that time, potentially still some people alive under the rubble.

Focus on recovery of bodies now

The Enga province disaster committee chairperson, Sandis Tsaka, said: “No bodies are expected to be alive under the debris at this point, so it’s a full recovery operation now to recover any human remains.”

Aid worker Mate Bagossy, who is with the UN development programme helping relief efforts said: “It’s basically a mountain that has fallen on their heads; an entire village and shops and a fuel station and a lodge and the church and the school… all of that has gone.”

Sitting on the “ring of fire”

Papua New Guinea sits in the Pacific Ocean’s so-called “Ring of Fire,” a belt of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.

It lies just north of Australia and regularly experiences landslides and natural disasters, but the latest incident is one of the most devastating it has seen in recent years.