the authorities warn of the risks of new landslides

The highlands community, where hundreds of people are believed to have died in a landslide on May 24, according to local officials, must be urgently evacuated. She “must be declared a prohibited area”warns a report internal of the Papua New Guinea Department of Mines and Geohazards, obtained Tuesday June 4 by AFP.

The study mentions factors that can cause new landslides, such as rocks on the verge of toppling or underground waterways. Affirming that there exists a “high probability of further landslides occurring in the immediate future”the report concludes that “all access to the area should be reserved for experts”.Geologists and experts believe that this could cause another landslide and therefore residents cannot stay on the site.

Rescuers have already given up on finding survivors under the 600-meter-long flow of debris and earth which broke away from Mount Mungalo, in the center of this South Pacific country. Twelve days after the disaster, residents continue to dig in deep mud and move stones in the hope of finding their loved ones.

Initial estimates from the Papua New Guinea government put up to 2,000 people buried by the landslide, but local officials recently put the figure at several hundred. Only nine bodies have been found so far, according to local health authorities.