Using heavy machinery to dig up the bodies of displaced villagers in Lae: Papua-New Guinea’s David Mana meets Billy Joseph

Traumatized villagers are divided over whether heavy machinery should be allowed to dig up and potentially further damage the bodies of their buried relatives, officials said.

Earth-moving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s military was being transported to the disaster scene 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae.

Mana’s office posted a photo of him at Yambali handing a local official a check for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to buy emergency supplies for the 4,000 displaced survivors.

Billy Joseph flew from the capital of Port Moresby to the northwest to see what is needed on Sunday, in an Australian military helicopter.

An excavator donated by a local builder Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving machinery brought in to help villagers who have been digging with shovels and farming tools to find bodies. It’s difficult to work around the debris.

The situation remained unstable due to the shifting ground, and it posed ongoing danger to the rescue teams and survivors alike.

Relief workers have a difficult time getting to the scene of disaster because of a 200 meter stretch of the main highway that was buried under debris of 20 to 26 feet.

Determining the scale of the disaster is difficult because of challenging conditions on the ground including the village’s remote location, a lack of telecommunications and tribal warfare throughout the province which means international relief workers and aid convoys require military escorts.

A U.N. migrant agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea concerned at the scene of the mass-casualty disaster

The prime minister’s office did not reply to the request for an explanation of the 2,000 figure.

The U.N. is helping shelter 1,600 people. The agency believes 670 villagers died, while the government in the country says more than 2,000 people are buried. by Monday there were five bodies recovered from the rubble.

The death toll of 670 was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provicincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by the landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.

Since the disaster, the number of casualties has varied and officials have not been sure how many people were affected.

The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.

Serhan Aktoprak, the U.N. migrant agency’s mission inapua New Fai, said they were not able to dispute the government’s suggestion but they could not speak on it.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Authorities fear a second landslide and a disease outbreak are looming at the scene of Papua New Guinea’s mass-casualty disaster because of water streams and bodies trapped beneath the tons of debris that swept over a village, a United Nations official said Tuesday.

There was a mass of boulders, earth and splintered trees in the remote highlands of the South Pacific when a limestone mountainside sheared away Friday. The blanket of debris has become more unstable with recent rain and streams trapped between the ground and rubble, said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the International Organization for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea.

“This is a major concern. The movement of the land, the debris, is causing a serious risk, and overall the total number of people that may be affected might be 6,000 or more,” he said. People who have a clean drinking water source buried and farmers who lost their vegetable gardens are included.

“If this debris mass is not stopped, if it continues moving, it can gain speed and further wipe out other communities and villages further down” the mountain, Aktoprak said.

“My biggest fear at the moment is corpses are decaying, … water is flowing and this is going to poise serious health risks in relation to contagious diseases,” Aktoprak said.

Australia‘s response to the earthquake in New Britain: a plan for Geohazard Assessment, Drones and Geohybrids

The United Nations was asked for more help by the government of the country of New Britain.

An Australian disaster response team was due to arrive in country which is Australia’s nearest neighbor. It will include a geohazard assessment team and drones to help map the site.

The minister for emergency management in Australia said that their role will be particularly helping to perform a series of tests to determine the level of the landslip.

Australia’s minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said the government would also provide long-term logistical support for clearing debris, recovering bodies and supporting displaced people. The government announced an initial aid package of 2.5 million Australian dollars ($1.7 million).

“One of the complicating factors was the destruction of parts of the road plus the instability of the ground, but they have some confidence that they can take in heavy equipment today,” McMahon said Tuesday.