Body recovery 'called off' at Papua New Guinea landslide site
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All efforts to recover the bodies have been called off to avoid the risk of further landslides.
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Locals carry supplies at the site of a landslide at Yambali village in the region of Maip Mulitaka, in Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province on May 29, 2024. (AFP)
The bodies of hundreds of villagers feared buried in a landslide in Papua New Guinea will not be recovered, the military announced on Wednesday, citing the recovery operations as "too dangerous."
Major Joe Aku, one of the leading military officials overseeing the site told AFP, citing the danger of possible further landslides. "Recovery is non-negotiable at this stage," he said
Papua New Guinea's government estimates that 2,000 people may have been buried under a 600-meter-long (2,000-foot) mountain of soil and boulders that engulfed a remote community in Enga province.
Aku stated that the toll could be closer to 650. According to local health authorities, makeshift recovery efforts have unearthed only nine bodies.
With the recovery effort now called off, the true toll of the disaster will likely never be known. "It is too dangerous to be on-site at this stage," authorities emphasized. This is the worst and biggest landslide I have seen," he said.
Earlier this week, officials in Papua New Guinea voiced their concerns, saying they don't expect to find survivors under the rubble of the landslide in the Enga region. Due to the treacherous mountain terrain, heavy equipment and aid have been slow to arrive amid tribal unrest in the area.
Papua New Guinea is one of the world's most disaster-prone regions and landslides are extremely common in its highlands. But the estimated 7,849 villagers near Mount Mungalo, in central Papua New Guinea, were not prepared for the landslide that buried families and their homes in the early hours of May 24.
