More Than 100 People Believed Killed by Landslide in Papua New Guinea, Australian Media Report 

People walk with their belongings in the area where a landslide hit the village of Kaokalam, Enga province, Papua New Guinea, 24 May 2024. (EPA)
People walk with their belongings in the area where a landslide hit the village of Kaokalam, Enga province, Papua New Guinea, 24 May 2024. (EPA)
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More Than 100 People Believed Killed by Landslide in Papua New Guinea, Australian Media Report 

People walk with their belongings in the area where a landslide hit the village of Kaokalam, Enga province, Papua New Guinea, 24 May 2024. (EPA)
People walk with their belongings in the area where a landslide hit the village of Kaokalam, Enga province, Papua New Guinea, 24 May 2024. (EPA)

More than 100 people are believed to have been killed Friday in a landslide that buried a village in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The landslide reportedly hit Kaokalam village in Enga province, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of the South Pacific island nation's capital of Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m. local time (15:00 GMT), ABC reported.

Residents say current estimates of the death toll are above 100, although authorities have not confirmed this figure. Villagers said the number of people killed could be much higher.

Videos on social media show locals pulling out bodies buried under rocks and trees.

The Papua New Guinea government and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Elizabeth Laruma, who runs a women's business association in Porgera, a town in the same province near the Porgera Gold Mine, said village houses were flattened when the side of a mountain gave way.

“It has occurred when people were still asleep in the early hours, and the entire village has gone down,” Laruma told ABC. “From what I can presume, it’s about 100-plus people who are buried beneath the ground.”

The landslide blocked the road between Porgera and the village, she said, raising concerns about the town's own supply of fuel and goods.

Village resident Ninga Role, who was away when the landslide struck, expects at least four of his relatives have died.

“There are some huge stones and plants, trees. The buildings collapsed,” Role said. “These things are making it hard to find the bodies fast.”

Belinda Kora, a Port Moresby-based ABC reporter, said authorities had yet to make any official comment more than 12 hours after the disaster.

Kora said helicopter was the only way of accessing the village which is in the mountainous interior region known as the Highlands with the main road closed.

Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cites.

With 10 million people, it is also the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to some 27 million.

Telecommunications are poor, particularly outside Port Moresby where government data shows 56% of the nation's social media users reside. Only 1.66 million people across the country use the internet and 85% of the population live in rural areas.



Kremlin: Putin Not Ruling Out Talks with Ukraine, but Wants Guarantees

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a TV camera screen as he speaks during a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Friday, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a TV camera screen as he speaks during a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Friday, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
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Kremlin: Putin Not Ruling Out Talks with Ukraine, but Wants Guarantees

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a TV camera screen as he speaks during a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Friday, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a TV camera screen as he speaks during a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Friday, June 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, but guarantees will be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations, Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Sunday.

More than 90 countries took part in a two-day event at the Buergenstock resort in central Switzerland aimed at uniting global opinion on how to end Moscow's 27-month-old invasion.
Russia was not invited to those talks.

Kyiv's positions have been taken into consideration in the final communique for the summit, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Sunday.

"The text is balanced, all of our principled positions on which Ukraine had insisted have been considered," he told reporters.

Kuleba also hinted that Russia could be involved in a future summit but dismissed Putin's demand on Friday that Kyiv cede four regions of Ukraine that Russia has occupied and drop its goal of joining NATO.