Papua New Guinea death toll touches 67

Monday, March 5, 2018

Aid workers in Papua New Guinea has confirmed that the death toll from last week’s 7.5 earthquake has touched at least 67 as the remote highlands of the country were once more rocked by strong aftershocks.

Three aftershocks, each stronger than magnitude 5 had left the Southern Highlands shaken early on Monday.

It spread fear in an area that was already destroyed when the largest quake to hit the region had struck a week ago. Aid has started trickling into the worst impacted regions.

But then, the extent of devastation has taken some days to emerge due to the remoteness of the area. It is about 500 km from the capital Port Moresby.

The head of the Red Cross office in Papua New Guinea, Udaya Regmi, mentioned that the death toll was expected to keep ascending. All the four regions hit by the earthquake continue to be under a state of emergency. The government has freed up the funding of emergency landing to commence relief efforts.

In addition, the major landslides, widespread cuts to communications and power have also ravaged the roadways thereby throwing major challenges to the relief work in this impoverished region.

Last week, the Red Cross had committed a large amount of money for the earthquake relief efforts.

But they admitted that they were having a tough time struggling to access the worst impacted areas since only helicopters were able to get in. The government of Australia donated an airplane, AU$200,000 and also some relief supplies like water purification tablets and tarpaulins.

Darian Clark who is the humanitarian duty officer at the Australian high commission in Papua New Guinea said that the effects of the quake were catastrophic. He feels that the was the  largest quake ever witnessed in a hundred years and it had spread to 150kms across the fault line.

He went on to add that several urban settlements and villages had been impacted.

Winston Peters who is the foreign minister of New Zealand said that his nation would made a donation of NZ$500,000 towards funding the relief efforts and also a RNZAF C130 Hercules aircraft that carried emergency relief supplies.

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