Pastor plucked alive from under landslide

By YEHIURA HRIEHWAZI
A LUTHERAN church pastor was dug out alive six hours after he was buried in a landslide in Boana, about 60km north-west of Lae, Morobe province.
Ps Afesingnane Bake and his wife were the only occupants of a makeshift hut in a smallholder coffee plot at Dirida village in the Erap-Wain LLG area on early on Wednesday morning when disaster struck.
Morobe Disaster Centre director Roy Kamen said at about 1am on Wednesday, a landslide occurred on a mountain side and carried with it a coffee plot. Pastor Bake and his wife were asleep in their house in the coffee plot when the mountain side went down.
The landslip was caused by continuous heavy rain caused by the La Nina weather pattern, according to Mr Kamen.
Their house was completely destroyed and the Pastor was buried inside but the wife managed to struggle out of the debris and run about 5km in pitch darkness and wet conditions to raise the alarm in the main village.
Villagers went to the landslide area at first daylight and started the digging through the deluge of mud, rocks, trees and the bushes that were dislodge from the mountain side.
At about 8am, one of the rescuers accidentally stepped on some debris directly above Ps Bake’s head and heard a human voice from underground calling for help.
The rescuer called for help from his fellow villagers, who joined him to dig around the area and pluck the pastor to safety and medical help.
Mr Kamen said the pastor was lucky to be alive, obviously through divine help.
“He could have been easily crushed to death,” Mr Kamen said.
He said some timber frames from his destroyed house shielded him from being crushed and he was able to breath and remained alive for six hours.

 

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