Aid reaches Papua New Guinea landslide site
PORT MORESBY — Supplies of food and medicine began arriving at the scene of a deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday, with aid workers discovering children rendered mute by the shock of the disaster.
Papua New Guinea’s government estimates that as many as 2,000 people may be buried underneath a massive landslide that struck a thriving highland settlement in western Enga province in the early hours of May 24.
Only six bodies have so far been pulled from the mountain of churned-up earth after days of frantic digging with makeshift tools.
Difficulties in getting aid and supplies to the site — and the speed of the government response — have stoked a mix of desperation and frustration on the ground.
With rescue teams abandoning hope of finding survivors under the meters of mud and rubble, the community has started to count the emotional and physical cost.
Mourning locals have started carrying the dead away in immense “haus krai” funeral processions — collective outpourings of love and grief that can last for weeks.
Images showed a group of men carrying a wooden casket down the forested valley on their shoulders as scores of mourners trailed behind them, wailing with despair.
Aid groups fear children will bear the brunt of the catastrophe, estimating that 40 percent of residents in the area are younger than 16.
“What we are hearing is that, because of what they saw and experienced, many of the children have stopped talking,” Justine McMahon from CARE Papua New Guinea told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Niels Kraaier from United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Papua New Guinea said workers were aware of nine orphaned children.
Unicef said it had started distributing rudimentary hygiene kits of buckets, jerrycans and soap, while World Vision said food, shelter, blankets and mosquito nets remained immediate needs.
However, full-scale rescue and relief efforts have been severely hampered by the site’s remote location, nearby tribal violence and landslide damage that has severed major road links.
Overwhelming tragedy
The collapse of bridges along the sealed road to the site has forced lengthy detours for some aid convoys.
Papua New Guinea’s military tried for days to bring heavy earthmoving equipment to the site. But, with a series of bridges in a state of disrepair or damaged by earlier floods, they have now abandoned that plan and will source equipment from mines and businesses.
That equipment will arrive at the landslide by Thursday at the “latest,” International Organization for Migration official Serhan Aktoprak told AFP.
Provincial leaders have implored the government to declare a national emergency that would draw attention to their plight and free up resources.
“I am not equipped to deal with this tragedy,” Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka told AFP.
Prime Minister James Marape is yet to visit the remote pocket of Enga more than five days after the landslide.
He has stayed in the capital Port Moresby, where his government is trying to fend off a no-confidence motion that could sweep it from power.
There are concerns that this political maneuvering has drawn attention away from what could be one of the country’s worst natural disasters.
Marape told the legislature on Wednesday that the village of Yambali was “no more.”
“Nature, through a disastrous landslip, submerged or covered the village, and from our initial estimation, over 2,000 people would have perished in this disaster,” he said.
“In this year, we have had extraordinary rainfall that has caused flooding in river areas, sea level rise in coastal areas, and landslips in a few areas,” the premier added.