The Deluge of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Sunday (June 11, 2009): The death count and the evacuation of survivors

Billy Joseph flew on Sunday in an Australian military helicopter from the capital of Port Moresby to the northwest to inspect what is needed.

McMahon believes it will be a challenging situation because it’s such a spread-out area. The scale of the disaster is enormous.

The provincial government was sending people to the region, McMahon said there were other health facilities in the region.

The numbers of injured and missing were still being assessed on Sunday. There were seven people that received medical treatment by Saturday and officials have no information on their conditions.

The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.

The government figure is roughly triple the U.N. estimate of 670 killed by the landslide in the South Pacific island nation’s mountainous interior. The remains of only six people had been recovered so far.

Emergency responders in Papua New Guinea were moving survivors to safer ground on Sunday as tons of unstable earth and tribal warfare, which is rife in the country’s Highlands, threatened the rescue effort.

Government authorities were setting up safer ground on either side of the enormous swath of debris, which has cut the main highway in the province, and where the evacuated people could come for help.

Beside the blocked highway, convoys that have transported food, water and other essential supplies since Saturday to the devastated village 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the provincial capital, Wabag, have faced risks related to tribal fighting in Tambitanis village, about halfway along the route. Papua New Guinea soldiers were providing security for the convoys.

There was a clash between two clans that resulted in the deaths of eight locals. Around 30 homes and five retail businesses were burned down in the fighting, local officials said.

The impact of tribal warfare on the survivors of the Mount Mungalo death scene: A CARE International official says the United States and Australia are willing to help

Aktoprak said he did not expect tribal combatants would target the convoys but noted that opportunistic criminals might take advantage of the mayhem to do so.

Aktoprak said that it could end up in carjacking or robbery. “There is not only concern for the safety and security of the personnel, but also the goods because they may use this chaos as a means to steal.”

Longtime tribal warfare has cast doubt on the official estimate that almost 4,000 people were living in the village when a side of Mount Mungalo fell away.

To provide survivors with food, water and shelter, was the highest priority according to the country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International. The military was leading those efforts.

The United States and Australia, a near neighbor and Papua New Guinea’s most generous provider of foreign aid, are among governments that have publicly stated their readiness to do more to help responders.

Traumatized villagers are divided over whether heavy machinery should be allowed to dig up and potentially further damage the bodies of their buried relatives, officials said.

The equipment used by the military was being transported to the scene 400 kilometers from the east coast city of Lae.

Mana’s office posted a photo of him at Yambali handing a local official a check for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to buy emergency supplies for the 4,000 displaced survivors.

The aftermath of the Friday morning landslide in Mabela, Papua New Guinea: A U.N. official says more than 2000 people have been buried alive

An excavator donated by a local builder Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving machinery brought in to help villagers who have been digging with shovels and farming tools to find bodies. The debris is not easy to work around.

“The situation remains unstable” due to the shifting ground, “posing ongoing danger to both the rescue teams and survivors alike,” Mana wrote to the United Nations.

A major obstacle to relief workers will be the 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep debris underneath the highway that was buried by the slide.

Determining the scale of the disaster is difficult because of challenging conditions on the ground including the village’s remote location, a lack of telecommunications and tribal warfare throughout the province which means international relief workers and aid convoys require military escorts.

The office of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape did not respond Monday to a request for an explanation of what the government estimate of 2,000 was based on.

MELBOURNE, Australia — A Papua New Guinea government official has told the United Nations more than 2,000 people were believed to have been buried alive by Friday’s landslide and has formally asked for international help.

Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived the number of people affected.

Serhan Aktoprak, the U.N. migrant agency’s mission in the country, said that they are not able to comment on the suggestions from the government.