At least 1,000 homes were destroyed and five people were killed when an earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck Papua New Guinea, officials said Monday (Mar 25). Emergency relief crews and officials were battling with challenges as they carried out rescue efforts. The tragedy came on Sunday even as dozens of villages located on the banks of the raging Sepik River were inundated, thus piling more misery on the residents.
East Sepik Governor Allan Bird in a statement said, “So far, around 1,000 homes have been lost,” adding that emergency crews were “still assessing the impact” from a tremor that “damaged most parts of the province”.
The police commander of the province, Christopher Tamari, said while talking to news agency AFP that at least five people lost their lives in the powerful earthquake.
Tamari added that the number of causalities was more likely to rise as authorities searched through debris and the remote jungle-clad region.
Governor Bird said that there was an urgent need to boost supplies of medical items, clean drinking water and temporary shelters in the disaster zone.
To aid search efforts, the Prime Minister of PNG has approved a US$130 million emergency funding package. PM James Marape said the package will help recovery efforts following “a spate of natural disasters” across the country.
“Papua New Guinea has been recently hit hard by (the) earthquake, flooding caused by heavy rain and ensuing landslips, king tides, strong winds, and others,” he said in a statement Sunday evening following the quake.
The PNG has been grappling with intense floods for some time now, with at least 23 people killed earlier this month alone in the interior Highlands region.
Papua New Guinea frequently experiences earthquakes due to its location in the seismic “Ring of Fire,” a region characterised by intense tectonic activity spanning Southeast Asia and the Pacific basin.
While earthquakes typically do not result in significant damage in the thinly populated jungle highlands, they often trigger devastating landslides.
With much of the country’s nine million citizens residing in rural areas far from urban centres, challenging terrain and limited infrastructure, including unsealed roads, often pose challenges in effective search and rescue operations.
(With inputs from agencies)
