(Port Moresby) Tribal violence is hampering access around a major landslide in Papua New Guinea and delaying relief work, humanitarian workers reported on Sunday.
The rivalries erupted along the only access route to the disaster area, but are not “related to the landslide”, said Serhan Aktoprak, a United Nations official based in the country’s capital Port Moresby. of the Pacific.
Mr. Aktoprak specified that the Papua New Guinea army had mobilized “a security escort” to ensure the passage of aid convoys. At least five bodies have already been found, the same source said on Saturday evening.
The natural disaster occurred during the night of Thursday to Friday around 3 a.m. (1 p.m. [heure de l’Est] Thursday) in the province of Enga, in the center of the country, surprising the inhabitants of a village who were buried under piles of mud and rubble while they slept, according to local authorities.
While it will likely take days or even weeks to arrive at a definitive toll, humanitarian organizations and local leaders fear that between 100 and 300 people may have died in the landslide.
The village in question has nearly 4,000 inhabitants, and due to its location, was a rallying point for many gold prospectors in the region.
“Working on the debris is very dangerous and the earth continues to slide,” said Aktoprak, relaying the concerns of a UN relief team working in Enga province.
In some places, the landslide – a mixture of rocks and earth that broke away from Mount Mungalo – reached a thickness of eight meters.
According to humanitarian organizations, the disaster wiped out the village’s livestock, food gardens and sources of drinking water.
It is barefoot that workers, equipped with shovels, axes and improvised tools, clear the scree to try to get out possible survivors, while others search piles of corrugated iron, used for housing .
However, more efficient machines must be transported to the disaster area on Sunday.
For residents of the region, the landslide must have been triggered by the heavy rains that fell on the region in recent weeks.
According to the World Bank, Papua New Guinea has one of the wettest climates in the world, and heavy rainfall regularly hits its humid regions in the highlands of the archipelago.
In March, at least 23 people have already lost their lives when a landslide occurred in a neighboring province.