Officials said on Monday, ‘Over 1,000 homes were destroyed and five people were killed when an earthquake of magnitude 6.9 struck Papua New Guinea’.
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 overpowering.
East Sepik Governor Allan Bird in a statement said, ‘So far, around 1,000 homes have been lost’.
It also added, ‘Emergency crews were still assessing the impact from a tremor that detroyed most parts of the province’.
Christopher Tamari, the police commander of the province said over 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.
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.
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.
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