Australia plans to send aid to Papua New Guinea as rain raises safety fears at deadly landslide site

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia prepared on Monday to send aircraft and other equipment to help at the site of a deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea as overnight rains in the South Pacific nation’s mountainous interior raised fears that the tons of rubble that buried hundreds of villagers could become dangerously unstable.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said his officials have been talking with their Papua New Guinea counterparts since Friday, when a mountainside collapsed on Yambali village in Enga province, which the United Nations estimates killed 670 people. The remains of only six people had been recovered so far.

“The exact nature of the support that we do provide will play out over the coming days,” Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“We’ve got obviously airlift capacity to get people there. There may be other equipment that we can bring to bear in terms of the search and rescue and all of that we are talking through with PNG right now,” Marles added.

Papua New Guinea is Australia’s nearest neighbor and the countries are developing closer defense ties as part of an Australian effort to counter China’s growing influence in the region. Australia is also the most generous provider of foreign aid to its former colony, which became independent in 1975.

Heavy rain fell for two hours overnight in the provincial capital of Wabag, 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the devastated village. A weather report was not immediately available from Yambali, where communications are limited.

But emergency responders were concerned about the impact of rain on the already unstable mass of debris lying 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep over an area the size of three to four football fields.

An excavator donated by a