Five dead, 1,000 homes destroyed in PNG quake

At least five people were killed and an estimated 1,000 homes destroyed when a magnitude 6.9 earthquake rocked Papua New Guinea (PNG), officials said yesterday as disaster crews poured into the region.

Dozens of villages nestled on the banks of the nation’s Sepik River were already battling floods when the quake struck early on Sunday morning.

“So far, around 1,000 homes have been lost,” East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said, adding that emergency crews were “still assessing the impact” from a tremor that “damaged most parts of the province.”

Provincial Police Commander Christopher Tamari said that authorities had so far recorded five deaths in the wake of the disaster.

Tamari said that, with emergency crews still venturing into the remote and jungle-clad region, the number of fatalities “could be more.”

Photographs showed damaged wooden houses with thatched roofs collapsing into the surrounding knee-high floodwaters, while an aging bridge in the provincial capital, Wewak, buckled under the strain.

Bird said that there was a pressing need to get medical supplies, clean drinking water and temporary shelter into the disaster zone.

Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape has approved a US$130 million emergency funding package to help recovery efforts following “a spate of natural disasters” across the nation.

“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 on Sunday evening following the quake.

Flooding, landslides and torrential rain earlier this month killed at least 23 people.

The Sepik River twists for hundreds of kilometers through Papua New Guinea’s East Sepik Province, flowing down from the jungle highlands and out toward the tropical coast. Largely untouched by urban development and industry, it is one of the nation’s last pristine waterways.