The Papua New Guinea government has reported that the landslide last Friday (May 24) has resulted in over 2,000 deaths, prompting the country to formally seek international assistance. This death toll exceeds the 2006 Southern Leyte, Philippines landslide disaster, which claimed 1,126 lives following 10 days of heavy rain. With more than 2,000 fatalities, the May 24 landslide is now considered the deadliest landslide of the twenty-first century.
The government’s casualty figure is nearly three times higher than the United Nations’ estimate of 670.
In a letter to the United Nations resident coordinator, the acting director of the South Pacific island nation’s National Disaster Center stated that the landslide “buried more than 2000 people alive” and caused “major destruction.”
The International Organization for Migration, which is collaborating with the government, has not revised its estimated death toll of 670, pending new evidence.
“We are not able to dispute what the government suggests but we are not able to comment on it,” Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migrant agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea, told the Associated Press.
“As time goes in such a massive undertaking, the number will remain fluid,” Aktoprak added.
Villagers are divided on whether heavy machinery should be used, fearing it might further damage the bodies of their buried relatives
Mana and Papua New Guinea’s defense minister, Billy Joseph, traveled on Sunday in an Australian military helicopter from the capital, Port Moresby, to Yambali, 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest, to assess the tragedy’s scope firsthand.
The visit aimed to determine whether Papua New Guinea’s government needed to officially request additional international aid.
Earth-moving equipment from Papua New Guinea’s military was being transported to the disaster site, 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae.
Officials cited by the Associated Press indicated that villagers are divided on whether heavy machinery should be used, fearing it might further damage the bodies of their buried relatives.