Landslide victims’ bodies found

THE bodies of 12 people who were buried alive by a landslide at Tambul in Western Highlands have been retrieved and are at the Mt Hagen hospital morgue.
Tendepo ward one councillor Nikindi Mandea confirmed yesterday that the bodies had been retrieved.
He said five bodies were found last Saturday while another five on Sunday and two bodies were located on Monday with the help of an excavator provided by the office of the local MP Win Bakri Daki.
Mandea said the area was still a risk of experiencing another landslide while material from the current landslide was still moving forcing people to flee the area and seek shelter in neighbouring villages.
He said the landslide in the early hours of Saturday morning buried 13 homes together and domestic animals.
Mandea said of the total number of deaths, eight were children while the rest were adults.
“People are still afraid because the landslide is continuing and many families have left the village at Kamdi to seek shelter in the nearby villages.”
Mandea said the people affected (dead and destroyed homes) were from Kamdi village, Upper Kagul in the Tambul-Nebilyer electorate.
Mandea said the landslide took place at Tendepo one ward and Tendepo ward two.
He described the landslide as “unusual” because the area did not have any steep mountains or hills.
He said the people of Kamdi were mourning their dead and waiting on government assistance to return to their land.
“At the moment, we are mourning at Kamdi but at least we have recovered all the dead bodies,” he said.
Provincial disaster coordinator Robin Yakamb said his office did not have funds available at the provincial level to assist the victims.
Yakamb believed climate change had something to do with the natural disasters in the province (landslides, hail storms and floods) and urged people to be prepared for them in the future.
He said over the last six months people had been killed in flooding in Mul, and a hail storm had destroyed garden crops in an area outside Mt Hagen.
Yakamb also warned people living along the banks of rivers, mountainsides and hillsides to take extra precaution.