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World - Asia/Pacific

Tidal wave destroys villages, kills 70 in Papua New Guinea

map July 18, 1998
Web posted at: 4:03 a.m. EDT (0803 GMT)

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- A massive tidal wave slammed into a heavily populated region of northwest Papua New Guinea Friday evening, killing at least 70 people and destroying several villages.

Hundreds of people are missing, and officials fear the death toll could rise.

Colin Travertz of the PNG National Disaster Center said 10 villages were completely destroyed when the wave swept ashore.

"At least 70 dead have been confirmed," he told CNN. BBC reported that at least 30 children were among the dead.

The wave, estimated at between 23 feet and 33 feet high, wreaked havoc across a northwest coastal region about 60 miles (96 km) long. The massive wave was caused by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck the coast near the seaport town of Aitape.

map

The Aitape provincial hospital in nearby Vanimo, which had been closed because of funding shortages, had been reopened to treat the injured.

"The whole hospital is full of injured at this stage," said Rob Parer, a businessman who lives near Aitape and is helping with rescue effort.

Parer told CNN that hundreds of thatch homes built along a stretch of beach on the edge of a lagoon were destroyed.

"There is a 25-mile-long lagoon (that is) about a 100-150 meters from the beach, and a lot of the people lived along that spit of water with their houses. So all those houses ... were just washed into the lagoon. There were about 12,000 people living along that spit," Parer said.

He added that emergency teams were working to retrieve bodies, but that many "are still floating around in the lagoon" and that the corpses are starting to "putrify."

Villages wiped out

Boats and helicopter crews were combing the devastated coastline for possible survivors.

One local Catholic priest, Father Austen, feared what crews might find.

"The village of Arop, population 1,800, on a spit of land fronting the Sissano lagoon was entirely wiped out," Austen said in a statement.

Another Catholic priest in Aitape told Reuters that three villages, housing 7,500 people, and a Catholic mission had all been destroyed.

"We have recovered 15 bodies and there are many more to recover," Augustine Kulmana told Reuters from Aitape by telephone. "We still don't have a lot of information. We have sent out boats but they have not yet returned.

"The tidal wave hit without any warning and wiped out three villages and a mission station," he said, adding the wave had left floods 30 feet deep in places.

Officials said communication difficulties could hinder search efforts, but that a team of emergency officials were assessing the situation. Doctors were on their way and arrangements were in place to supply rice and other aid to victims.

Reuters contributed to this report.
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