Ten people have died in a landslide in Gazelle district in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province following continuous heavy rain, according to local news media reports.

The disaster occurred after the Toriu River burst its banks after intense rainfall and severe weather conditions experienced across the region over the past few days due to Cylcone Maila.

Local media is reporting that the incident happened on Sunday in the Gazelle Baining Local Level Government area.

The Post-Courier reports the victims included a five-month-pregnant woman and three toddlers.

Provincial Administrator Levi Mano said the landslide was a result of adverse weather conditions brought by the cyclone.

Gazelle MP Jelta Wong confirmed the deaths.

Wong said recovery teams faced challenges reaching the disaster area because of its remoteness, but the recovery was eventually successful.

According to the Post-Courier, East New Britain Governor Michael Marum visited the site by helicopter to inspect the damage and coordinate relief supplies.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As the Papua New Guinea government continues its globe trotting, the Nonga Base hospital in Rabaul, East New Britain province, is facing a crisis with no morgue cooling chamber for the last five years.

The dead are piled on top of each other and are put into chest freezers that cannot hold more than four bodies at any given time.

The hospital’s morgue is currently the only mortuary in the province that caters for more than 400,000 people.

Hospital manager Dr Osiat Baining confirmed the hospital’s dilemma, saying that the faulty cooling chamber forced the hospital into purchasing nine chest freezers to cater for the dead.

Dead bodies are put in body bags and piled on top of each other and stored in large chest freezers inside the morgue.

The PNG Post-Courier was informed that Health Secretary Dr Osborne Liko is in the process of getting appropriate information on the issue and a detailed response will be made later.

The newspaper understands that given the autonomy of the Provincial Health Authority (PHA), the chief executives of the hospital and the PHA are the appropriate people to speak to.

Faulty cooling chamber
Dr Baining confirmed with the Post-Courier yesterday that the hospital morgue’s cooling chamber had been faulty and was in need of new parts that could only be purchased overseas.

“It’s been faulty for more than five years already, so we have been using chest freezers,” he said.

“We have about eight to nine chest freezers. For capacity, one chest freezer can hold up to four dead bodies.

“We have been trying to get a new [cooling] chamber because we don’t have parts available in the country for the one we have. Its an old one too and needs to be replaced,” he said.

Dr Baining added that a cooling chamber of 12 cabinets could cost almost 1 million kina  (NZ$465,000) and plans are underway by the hospital to get new cooling chambers for its morgue.

“We are actually in the process of getting a new one but at the moment we need funding, as well a supplier for it.

Depends on state budget
“It really depends on the government, on what budget they give us.

“If they give us enough for what we ask for, otherwise we cannot really get most of the things we need.”

Meanwhile, the diener, or “morgue man” at Rabaul Provincial Hospital’s morgue, Kero Kalang, said the biggest challenge of his job was getting dead bodies every day at his doorstep.

He said he was constantly concerned about space and appealed to responsible authorities like the Provincial Health Authority if another mortuary, like Port Moresby and Lae’s Funeral Home, could be set up in the province.

Dianne Wilson is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

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Papua New Guinea police in East New Britain have launched a 21-day operation to clamp down on community conflicts in the province.

Police operation camps have also been set up at conflict hotspots.

ENB provincial police commander Chief Inspector Januarius Vosivai said the aim of the operation was to ease tension to allow the next processes to start.

The Gelegele resettlement, Nangananga and Takubar are among other crime hotspots being closely monitored by police.

Chief Inspector Vosivai said the two weeks of the term 2 school holidays had been the peak of community fights in the province.

He said school-aged children — mostly boys — were involved in the confrontations in the communities.

“Community fights is fuelled by petty criminal activities and when people do not report such matters to authorities and take it upon themselves, it further escalates,” he said.

Collaborative efforts
Authorities and local leaders are taking collaborative efforts to restore peace as well as seeking long term resolutions to the conflicts.

Police response units have set up camps in the fighting zones and are monitoring the situation.

Meanwhile, authorities in the province have initiated a peace process to be staged at the Gelegele resettlement area in the Rabaul district today.

Community leaders at Gelegele have also urged youth to let the authorities deal with the matter while they refrain from instigating further violence.

Several meetings at the Kabiu local level government chamber in Rabaul had been held with each rival community convening to stabilise tension within the resettlement area.

“We are doing all we can to restore peace in our community, it is sad to see homes ransacked, houses burnt down and families fleeing for their lives,” a local leader said.

Republished with permission.

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It took 20 years and just three votes to unshackle anti-corruption champion Dr Allan Marat’s grip on the Rabaul Open seat in East New Britain Province in Papua New Guinea’s general election.

His reign finally came to an end at 5pm yesterday when Rabaul Open Returning Officer Babel Umri announced Graham Piniau Rumet, son of legendary Mataungan leader late Daniel Rumet, was the new member-elect for Rabaul.

Dr Allan Marat calmly and graciously accepted his defeat and announced he would retire to his family home to take care of the family business.

It was a political race that went down to the wire and is the closest winning margin in the 47-year history of the PNG Parliament.

Dr Marat led the preliminary count all the way until box 20, which was the final box for the electorate, registering 4317 votes with Rumet at his heels on 2683 votes.

At the end of the preliminary count, none of the nine candidates met the absolute majority figure and the count went into the elimination round.

United Labour Party candidate Raymond Paulias was the kingmaker when the distribution of his second and third choice votes gave Rumet 5192 votes to Mara’s 5189.

Winning votes
His winning votes came from the preferential votes of Paulias who was eliminated in the seventh round.

Dr Marat, who was regarded as one of the Gazelle Peninsula’s robust, transparent, anti-corruption voices, lost by a mere three votes.

Rumet, who was in Kokopo, had to rush to the Sir Ronald ToVue Hall at the Malaguna Technical Secondary School to be declared by Umri in the presence of the Provincial Administrator and Chairman of the Provincial Election Steering Committee Wilson Matava.

The Matupit man was hoisted high on the shoulders of jubilant supporters and was carried into the hall with chants of “Graham! Graham! Graham”!

In his maiden speech, Rumet said he would stand for change in the Rabaul district.

He acknowledged his loyal supporters and also the people of Rabaul for having the confidence in him to be their leader for the next five years.

Bringing change
“We’ve prepared ourselves for 15 years for this victory today,” he said.

He assured the people of Rabaul that he would work closely with them to bring change to the district.

“I want to thank the previous member for being the captain of our vessel for the past 20 years,” he said.

Rumet’s declaration is the second for East New Britain Province with Pomio MP Elias Kapavore retaining his seat with an absolute majority win of 11,949 votes and 55 counts of ballot papers.

Kapavore is the first People’s National Congress (PNC) candidate in the country to win his seat.

Paul Bungtabu and Poreni Umau are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

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