The total number of people killed in the landslide in Papua New Guinea’s remote and mountainous Enga Province will probably never be known. Shortly after the entire hillside collapsed on Friday, it was speculated around 150 men, women and children had lost their lives. Such a death toll is tragic in itself, but as the days have passed, the numbers have continued to grow.
At the time of writing, the PNG government is reporting the toll exceeds 2,000, making this one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the nation.
Of course, the number of lives lost is only one, crude way of measuring the impact of disasters. Behind each of these deaths are lost livelihoods, broken families and even more poverty. The effects will last for years, even decades.
