People living in fear of 7.5 magnitude of earthquake in Southern Highlands Province

The Papua New Guinea is hit by historical 7.5 magnitude of earthquake which have traumatize many people and they are living in fear.

3:34am: 26^th February 2018 is going down the history book of Papua New Guinea of the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that ruined the Oil and Gas rich Southern Highland and Hela Provinces. The Hela Province once part of Southern Highlands Province but recently separated and become Province of its own.

Papua New Guinea experiences many earthquakes; however, the scale of its impact has been limited in terms of human injuries, fatties and infrastructure damages. The past records of fatalities have occurred indirectly from flood damaged dams caused by an earthquake-triggered landslide that swept nearby riverbank infrastructures, but injuries were minimal.  

Many earthquakes are isolated than the current one. The current earthquake has ruined huge landmass of entire Southern and Hela Provinces. It’s also spread to three other Provinces Enga, Gulf and Western. 

The huge infrastructure damage has occurred in Southern Highlands and Hela Province. The biggest airport in southern hemisphere is ruined and sitting idle in Hela Province.

Many local people homes, church buildings, public health facilities are smashed into dust in a click of a second by the huge earthquake’s shockwave.

The earthquake have directly caused many injuries and fatalities. The twenty people reported died from the disaster .The number of deaths will increase as recovery efforts are slowly moving into the area. Many bodies are buried and people are digging manual to recover them .

Many people’s gardens are under the debris or washed away by river. As such they can’t go into their bush gardens alone in fear of next attack. They are living together in one place.  However, experts are saying that there will be no more aftershock earthquakes.

The Prime Minister Peter O’Neill have visited the disaster provinces and immediately call an Emergency National Executive Council meeting. The Opposition leader have praised the Prime Minister for swift response and directed the PNG defense personnel to provide relief effort and they’re now on the ground.

Given the severity of the problem, the government is putting together relief effort package, on the other people are dying. Reporting coming from PNG Loop News is that three people have died of starvation while waiting for government relief effort.

The Australia Government has thrown its support to help PNG government and hopefully many more will join in the support.