Volunteer rescuers conducted non-stop airlifts to remote areas of Papua New Guinea on Tuesday to reach victims still stranded two days after a massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake.
The tremor shook large parts of the north of the country and killed at least seven people, but the extent of the disaster is only slowly coming into focus.
According to on-site experts from the United Nations, at least 389 houses collapsed in the city of Madang alone. The number of claims is expected to increase as ground crews reach other communities.
Maki Igarashi of the International Federation of Red Cross told AFP it was “very difficult to access most places” because of the remoteness of the affected area.
The earthquake’s epicenter was “in the middle of the jungle,” she said.
With government resources limited, much of the rescue effort has been carried out by small private companies and volunteers.
Pilot Juergen Ruh, the owner of Manolos Aviation Limited, told AFP news agency he had “lost” the number of medical evacuations he had carried out since Sunday morning’s earthquake.
“It hasn’t stopped yet,” he said as he prepared to leave for two more medevac flights to the country’s remote highlands.
Of those rescued, “the youngest person was two years old,” Ruh said, adding that the girl survived with a fractured skull after emergency surgery.
Ruh said his company took calls directly from people who needed to be evacuated, adding that in Papua New Guinea “if you don’t help yourself, nobody will help you”.
– Saw the mountain ‘disappear’-
The earthquake was the largest in the Pacific nation since 2002 but has so far claimed far fewer lives than the last major quake, which killed 145 in 2018.
Papua New Guinea authorities have confirmed all seven deaths were caused by landslides near the Rai coast, Kambum and Wau, where three miners were killed after being trapped underground.
Ruh said some of his pilots were flying a pregnant mother when the quake struck, and as they flew her to safety, “they saw the side of the mountain disappear.”
The Red Cross’ Igarashi said internet and power outages after the earthquake made it difficult to get a full picture of the situation on the ground.
The Ramu hydroelectric power station, located near the epicenter, was damaged by the quake and internet service has slowed dramatically due to the impact on undersea cables.
