Connect with us

Published

on

Thousands in Papua New Guinea have been ordered to evacuate from the path of a landslide that killed at least 670 people, as fears grow of a second major rockfall.

Officials from the Pacific country said the chance of finding survivors under the rubble in Yambali is slim, after previously saying they believe more than 2,000 people were buried alive.

Enga province disaster committee chairperson Sandis Tsaka explained the area “is very unstable”, hindering relief efforts for those hit by Friday’s landslide.

Military convoys have also had to escort aid teams over unrest among survivors. Meanwhile, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) previously estimated 670 villagers died.

On Tuesday afternoon, the UN said six bodies have already been retrieved from the rubble, and an estimated 7,849 people have been displaced.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Rescue ongoing after deadly landslide

‘Another landslide can happen’

Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the IOM’s mission in Papua New Guinea, said on Tuesday his agency is hearing “that another landslide can happen and maybe 8,000 people need to be evacuated”.

More on Papua New Guinea

“This is a major concern,” he added. “The movement of the land and the debris is causing a serious risk, and overall, the total number of people that may be affected might be 6,000 or more.

“If this debris mass is not stopped, if it continues moving, it can gain speed and further wipe out other communities and villages further down.”

The landslide occurred after a limestone mountainside sheared away at around 3am (6pm in the UK) on Friday.

Boulders, loose earth and splintered trees were then washed down into Yambali by rainfall trapped between the debris and ground.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Fears of disease outbreak

Footage posted on social media showed locals pulling out people from beneath the rubble and searching through mud, which Mr Aktoprak warned could lead to an outbreak of diseases in the village.

“My biggest fear at the moment is corpses are decaying… water is flowing and this is going to pose serious health risks in relation to contagious diseases,” he said.

Mr Aktoprak separately told Sky News on Tuesday morning that “rocks are continuing to fall” in Papua New Guinea and added: “The land mass debris is moving towards lower areas.

“And to make [the] situation worse, water has been flowing between the soil on which the mass debris had landed for days.

“Now the water levels – as reported by my colleagues – are rising to the upper levels of the debris, making it difficult.”

Read more on Sky News:
Singer behind 17-minute classic dies
PGA Tour golfer took his own life
Rafah is ‘hell on Earth’ – UN agency head

Pic: Reuters / UNDP
Image:
Pic: Reuters / UNDP

Aid bridge collapses

It comes as a UN official said a bridge, part of the main route for delivering aid to Yambali, collapsed on Tuesday.

Itayi Viriri, regional spokesperson for the IOM, said the collapse has cut off Enga province from the main highway, forcing heavy equipment to take a longer route through the rough terrain.

“The conditions are very, very difficult,” he added. “In some parts, the land is still moving.”

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

He added teams are working to prevent “another disaster” and told a UN briefing in Geneva: “We still have water underneath the rubble so that is making the whole area quite uneven. It ensures all response efforts have to be done in a very careful manner.”

Australia has also announced an initial aid package of $2.5m (£1.3m) and sent a disaster response team to Yambali, which was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.

Papua New Guinea is a developing Pacific nation comprising mostly subsistence farmers, with over 800 languages spoken.

Some 85% of its 10 million population live in rural areas.

Continue Reading

World

Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Published

on

By

Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

More on Cop29

Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.

Continue Reading

World

At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

Published

on

By

At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

Read more:
No 10 indicates Netanyahu would be arrested
‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

Continue Reading

World

Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

Published

on

By

Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

More on Russia

General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

Read more from Sky News:
What are storm shadow missiles?
How bionic limps are helping Ukrainian troops

Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

Continue Reading

Trending