5 Mar 2009

PNG Government advises caution amid more bad weather

6:33 pm on 5 March 2009

Papua New Guinea's Government has warned people to be careful following widespread flooding and landslides around the country, due to the heavy rain brought on by the monsoon season.

The Post Courier reports the Minister for Works and Transport Don Polye as saying that as well as claiming lives, bad weather is causing unprecedented damages to infrastructure, food gardens, cash crops and homes, leaving many homeless.

There have been a series of flooding or heavy-rain related crises in PNG since the start of the year, with the latest major one seeing a reported seventeen people killed by a landslide in Eastern Highlands this week.

Key bridges and roads in the Highlands and Mamose regions have been destroyed by the flooding in recent weeks.

Also thousands of people left homeless in the East and West Sepik provinces from flooding and sea-level rise destruction earlier this year.

Meanwhile, outside Goroka where the massive landslide occurred this week, the Highlands Highway remains cut off, sparking off fear that fuel and supplies to the Highlands provinces will run out soon.