670 people killed in Papua New Guinea landslide

More than 670 people have been killed in a massive landslide that hit Papua New Guinea on Friday.

Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the UN International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in the nation, said the revised number of fatalities is based on calculations from Yambali village and Enga provincial officials.

The officials now estimate that more than 150 homes had been buried. The previous estimate was 60 homes.

Papua New Guinea is an island nation in Oceania. It lies in the south-western Pacific and includes the eastern half of New Guinea and several offshore islands.

A landslide is the collapse of a mass of earth or rock from a mountain or cliff.

The UN now estimates that more than 4,000 people have been impacted after a thousand homes caved in.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said more than six villages were hit by the landslide in the province’s Mulitaka region.

Sky News reports that three bodies were pulled from an area where 40 to 50 homes were destroyed, and that six people, including a child, were pulled from the rubble alive.

Survivors rummaged through tonnes of earth and rubble for missing relatives, as a first emergency convoy delivered food and other supplies on Saturday.

“Hopes to take the people out alive from the rubble have diminished now,” Aktoprak said.

Papua New Guinea has a population of around 10 million people. It is the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia.

The country sits on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’– the arc of seismic faults where much of the world’s volcanic activity occurs.

The country was hit by a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in March.