More than 670 people are estimated dead after a freak landslide in Papua New Guinea, the chief U.N. migration agency said Sunday, abandoning hope that any more survivors will be found alive. The U.N. now believes that more than 150 homes in Maip Mulitaka, in the shadow of Mount Mungalo in the country’s Enga province, were buried by Friday’s landslide, though the 670 estimate is likely to change since it’s based on the average family size of a household in the region. Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, told the AP that while the numbers are likely to be adjusted, “We do not want to come up with any figures that would inflate the reality.” As of Sunday, responders were working to evacuate survivors, and only five bodies and the leg of a sixth victim had been recovered. The region is also destabilized by tribal warfare, throwing the displaced into more uncertainty and danger. The country is weighing whether to call on more international aid.
