{"id":1554755,"date":"2024-03-15T03:16:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T03:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=98282"},"modified":"2024-03-15T03:16:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T03:16:22","slug":"png-begins-wild-weather-relief-operations-21-killed-in-mud-slides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/03\/15\/png-begins-wild-weather-relief-operations-21-killed-in-mud-slides\/","title":{"rendered":"PNG begins wild weather relief operations \u2013 21 killed in mud slides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postcourier.com.pg\/\"><em>PNG Post-Courier<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister James Marape has announced comprehensive relief operations in Papua New Guinea&#8217;s devastating weather that has killed at least 21 people and impacted on 16 provinces.<\/p>\n<p>The 21 who died were buried under tonnes of mud in three separate mudslides in Chimbu province.<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen provinces in three regions were being monitored by the PNG National Weather Service for flooding following erratic changes in weather patterns, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postcourier.com.pg\/16-provinces-impacted-by-change-in-weather\/\">reports Claudia Tally<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postcourier.com.pg\/heavy-downpour-damaging-roads-bridges\/\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> Heavy rain damages roads, bridges across PNG<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From king tides, solar flares and rising temperatures since December 2023, the weather in the country has taken a swift turn to heavy downpours and reported flash flooding in Central, Northern, Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Madang and Morobe provinces over the last seven days.<\/p>\n<p>The changes in the weather pattern, especially the flooding, has left many provincial highways eroded, bridges broken and people stranded.<\/p>\n<p>The government&#8217;s relief operations, spearheaded by the Department of Works and Highways, National Disaster Office, and the PNG Defence Force, aims to mitigate the challenges faced by communities across the nation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKing tides, landslips, and other unfortunate natural incidents as a result of the continuous rain and wet weather conditions around the country at present and in recent weeks is of concern to government,&#8221; Marape said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Works directives<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cWe have already taken steps to provide relief and address the specific situations through the responsible government agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said directives had been issued to the Works and Highways Department, National Disaster Office, and Defence Force to dispatch specialist teams.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_98291\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98291\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-98291 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Panga-flood-PNGPC-680wide.png\" alt=\"A man tries to clear the debris blocked under the Waghi bridge\" width=\"680\" height=\"406\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Panga-flood-PNGPC-680wide.png 680w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Panga-flood-PNGPC-680wide-300x179.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-98291\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A man tries to clear the debris blocked under the Waghi bridge at Panga bordering Jiwaka and Western Highlands provinces on Wednesday morning. Image: PNG Post-Courier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThese teams are tasked with assessing and addressing road slippages and blockages, ensuring expedient restoration of access and support to the affected locales,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCertain places around the country like Gumine in Chimbu Province have been cut off and require urgent attention to restore and relieve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther places in low-lying areas of the country like Gulf Province are also being affected by the continuous rain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve mobilised the necessary government resources to clear and relieve those areas affected by the heavy rains over the past month or more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He lauded the Department of Works and Highways for their prompt action in Porgera, Enga Province, following a landslip that severed connections to surrounding areas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe department\u2019s efforts have successfully reopened the critical access road, demonstrating the government\u2019s commitment to swift and effective crisis management,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\"><br>\r\nThis content originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2024\/03\/15\/png-begins-wild-weather-relief-operations-21-killed-in-mud-slides\/\" >Asia Pacific Report<\/a> and was authored by APR editor.  <br><\/p>\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2024\/03\/15\/png-begins-wild-weather-relief-operations-21-killed-in-mud-slides\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PNG Post-Courier Prime Minister James Marape has announced comprehensive relief operations in Papua New Guinea\u2019s devastating weather that has killed at least 21 people and impacted on 16 provinces. The 21 who died were buried under tonnes of mud in three separate mudslides in Chimbu province. Sixteen provinces in three regions were being monitored by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2242,27617,45257,851,5,11669,46000,622,3854,64919,70443,1696,12,366,39139,76189,76191,14,4579,1633,76192,27150,1743,855,61033],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554755"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555277,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554755\/revisions\/1555277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}