SYDNEY: More than 30 people are believed to have died after a powerful earthquake struck Papua New Guinea’s mountainous interior, a report said on Tuesday as details of “extensive” damage began to emerge.

The 7.5-magnitude tremor struck 90 kilometres south of Porgera in the Pacific nation’s Enga province early on Monday, with two strong aftershocks rattling the rugged region.

Phone lines were largely cut, but the PNG Post Courier newspaper cited Hela provincial administrator William Bando as saying there were casualties.

It reported that at least 13 died in the Southern Highlands capital Mendi while 18 others were believed to have been killed in nearby Kutubu and Bosave.

Some 300 people were injured, it added, and properties damaged, with reports of landslides and sinkholes.

The Papua New Guinea Today website, quoting Catholic priest Pius Hal, said at least 10 died, including four children, in quake-triggered landslides.

A government assessment team was due to fly into the area on Tuesday to get a better idea of the impact, with the military mobilised to help restore services and infrastructure, the government’s Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari said in a statement.

Information will be provided as this is made available from assessment teams in the area,” he added. Hela governor Philip Undialu, who was in the capital Port Moresby, told The National newspaper there was widespread damage.

“The scale of damage, from information we are getting from the ground, is quite extensive,” he said, adding that there were around 19 landslides between Mendi and the town of Mount Hagen. “Our police station, courthouse, hospital ... even private houses have been ripped apart or sunk into the ground.”

Agnes Kep told the Post Courier she was asleep in Mendi when the quake struck. “We could feel the house and the earth shaking, we wanted to run for the door and out of the house, but it was too late,” she said, fearing that if they went outside “the ground might open up and swallow us”.

The thatched roof on the house she was in collapsed “but we didn’t care, we just clung to each other and waited for the shaking to stop”.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018