Sixty people are missing and feared dead after an entire village was wiped out in a landslide in the Commonwealth country of Papua New Guinea.
The flimsy village homes made of palm fronds and sticks were crushed by boulders the size of cars as the landslide destroyed an area more than half a mile long and up to 40 yards wide last night.
Former MP Sir Alfred Kaibe, pleading for foreign aid to help survivors, said: 'This is a tragedy of a magnitude the nation hasn't seen before.
Villagers today search the site of a landslide that struck villages in the Southern Highlands mountainous region of central Papua New Guinea
Villagers today search the site of a landslide that struck villages in the Southern Highlands mountainous region of central Papua New Guinea
The aftermath of a landslide, which wiped out an entire village, is seen in this aerial picture taken in Nogoli, Papua New Guinea
The aftermath of a landslide, which wiped out an entire village, is seen in this aerial picture taken in Nogoli, Papua New Guinea
'Those who have been displaced will need food, emergency supplies and tents.'
Rescue workers were today making their way to the remote region in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, which lies to the north of Australia.
Continuing heavy rain has hampered rescued efforts - and added to fears that another landslide will follow.
Local people have blamed blasting from nearby quarries which sent hundreds of tons of earth crashing down on the village of Tumbi.
Last night thousands of people from nearby villages made their way to the disaster zone, many with faces smeared with mud as a sign of mourning.
Andrew Alphonse, a reporter from the Post Courier newspaper, said locals have already named 26 people they believe have been killed but the death toll is expected to rise dramatically to more than double.
He said: 'Rescue workers haven't been able to retrieve the bodies because of the difficult conditions.
'The engineers and the National Emergency teams from Port Moresby, they've moved into the area today and they'll access the site around there.
'And then from there they'll do some studies on how they can go about picking up the bodies..It is such a huge task.'
Local MP Francis Potape, describing the devastation as widespread, told of harrowing scenes.
He said: 'You have a mother crying on the site, a father crying, people crying - those are the ones who are sure that their relatives are buried in there and have died.'
Locals are blaming quarrying work being carried out at the US-owned Exxon-Mobil liquefied natural gas project.
Despite the disaster, a company spokeswoman said work had resumed at the £10 billion project near the landslide disaster.
By Richard Shears
26th January 2012
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091971/Sixty-feared-dead-entire-village-wiped-Papua-New-Guinea-landslide.html#ixzz1kYwig9p3
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