PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Reports of significant and widespread damage are slowly emerging from earthquake-hit central Papua New Guinea.

With transport and communications links to the affected highlands provinces still badly disrupted, there is still no official death toll.

The Papua New Guinea Government says there has been extensive damage to the town nearest to the epicentre of a powerful earthquake.

Government officials and Defence Force personnel have flown in to the highlands town of Tari to assess damage from a magnitude-7.5 quake which struck on February 26.

The director of the National Disaster Centre, Martin Mose, said the impact was obvious.

“There were buildings and structures that sustained damage to them and the powerlines as well,” he said.

“There were a couple of poles that actually gave way and there were trees uprooted.”

Mose said people in Tari were terrified by the continuing aftershocks.

“People are frightened, because there are rumours spreading now that a bigger one will come,” said local man, Moses Komengi.

“ We can see the police moving out in choppers. And ExxonMobil is evacuating all its personnel and employees out of the gas sites. So this is giving question to the people, ‘why is this happening?’”

Mose said he was in Tari when a strong aftershock hit: “I saw people running and screaming and it shows me that they’re still very much scared of what actually happened.”

Mose said local officials told him about 10 people had died in Tari, but he did not have formal confirmation from health authorities.

Tari’s services have all ground to a halt, except for the hospital which was only accepting emergency cases.

Some residents in the neighbouring Southern Highlands province are still trying to recover the bodies of family members buried in landslides.

Several houses, one with a family of four inside, were swept into a river of mud when the side of a mountain collapsed.

“Four bodies are inside and we haven’t found them yet,” neighbour Sale Sapnaik said.

“We are still digging, men are struggling but it’s still hard. The silt is like a mountain.”

The PNG Red Cross Secretary General Uvenama Rova, said they were trying to mobilise about 20 volunteers to go in to the area.

Local officials in the Southern Highlands provincial capital, Mendi, said 11 people had died in the town area but the death toll was expected to rise.

A police spokesman said there were also reports of entire hillsides coming down and whole villages being buried by landslides.

The impact of the quake is spread across a wide area of the mountainous region, with homes, roads and crops damaged.

Exxon-Mobil and Oil Search have suspended their oil and gas operations in Southern Highlands and Hela Provinces and have been evacuating non-essential staff.

Large gold and copper mines in the highlands have also been affected.

Wapu Sonk, the managing director of PNG’s state-owned oil and gas company, Kumul Petroleum, said the quake would affect the PNG economy.

“These are the key resources that PNG depends on,” he said.

- PNC sources