Papua New Guinea evacuating landslide villages as hopes for survivors fade
Hopes are fading that an estimated 2,000 people buried by a landslide in Papua New Guinea’s Enga province will be found alive, a United Nations official has said.
“It is not a rescue mission, it is a recovery mission,” UNICEF Papua New Guinea’s Niels Kraaier said. “It is very unlikely they will have survived.”
Rescue efforts at the site of the landslide on Mount Mungalo have been led by local residents, many of whom lost their entire families in the landslide, which wiped out an entire hillside community at about 3am on Friday (18:00 GMT on Thursday).
The landslide also wiped out vegetable gardens and roads, hampering rescue efforts and leaving villagers worried about finding enough to eat, as they search for their loved ones.
Fears are also growing for nearby villages as the ground continues to shift.
Local authorities are now trying to evacuate 7,900 people to avoid any further loss of life.
Al Jazeera’s Ibtissem Guenfoud reports.
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