A strong avalanche hit a remote village in the north of Papua New Guinea with initial information that suggests that there could be more than 100 fatalities according to the Australian public broadcaster ABC.
The landslide occurred around 3 a.m. on Friday (17:00 GMT on Thursday) in the town of Kookalam in the province of None about 600 kilometers northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, indicates this medium.
The chain points out that residents of the area estimate that the death toll could exceed one hundred, although local authorities have not released data at the moment.
According to a neighbor cited by ABC, Elizabeth Laruma, the houses were buried when the sudden avalanche from a nearby mountain, which surprised the locals while they were sleeping. This woman stated that “the entire town has disappeared.”
For its part, the regional service of the American network NBC indicates that the avalanche has destroyed houses, gardens and blocked access to the town.
Despite being a country rich in natural resources, a large part of the more than nine million inhabitants of Papua New Guinea live in extreme poverty and are isolated by communication problems and infrastructure deficits, especially in remote areas, where there is a lack of basic health and education services.
Papua New Guinea sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire an area of great seismic and volcanic activity that is shaken by about 7,000 earthquakes a year, most of them moderate.
The last one on record occurred on Tuesday, when A 5.7 magnitude earthquake shook the central region of the country without the authorities reporting any victims or material damage.