Family barely escapes landslide

A MOTHER and her four children escaped death in Mt Hagen when their home at Tarangau was partly covered by a landslide last Monday.
Merian Bepi from Chimbu, a long-serving staff of the Western Highlands administration, escaped with her four children and a baby after breaking the kitchen window and crawling out and watching helplessly as part of their home was covered.
Bepi said that her poultry house, which contained 57 chickens, and another house with eight pigs were all buried.
She said she lost her cooking utensils, clothes, tools and gardens.
Bepi said the landslide took place at around 11pm.
She said the landslide was probably caused by recent heavy rains.
Bepi said she heard a rumbling and felt the house moving.
She said her son opened the door thinking they had a visitor but no one was there.
When they realised something was wrong, they tried to come out through the door but it was blocked by mud and they were forced to go out a window.
“This is the first time I have experienced such a disaster and that is something I did not expect because I lived almost my entire life at Tarangau,” she said.
“If we did not escape, that could have been the end of us because mud and whatever the land slide brought would have landed on our house.”