PORT MORESEBY – Three bodies have been recovered and 16 people are missing, feared dead, after a massive landslide wiped out a remote Papua New Guinea village.
Villagers had to walk three hours to alert authorities in Morobe Province, on PNG’s northwest coast, after days of continual heavy rains caused the landslide early on Monday.
Authorities and local media reported on Wednesday at least five Firangka village houses were wiped out in the Sialum District when the face of an overlooking mountain slid for more than 500m, carving up 200m at its widest.
An oil spill in eastern Australia has forced officials to declare a 60 kilometer stretch of the Queensland coast a disaster zone amid warnings that legal action could be taken against the operator of the cargo ship that lost its fuel in stormy seas.
Australian authorities originally said about 30 tons of oil were lost when 31 containers of fertilizer slipped from the Hong Kong-flagged “Pacific Adventurer” ship and punctured fuel tanks in the hull as the ship was battered in cyclone-stirred waters.
Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said Friday the spill was larger than had been reported but did not say exactly how much oil was shed.
SYDNEY – A SINGAPORE-OWNED energy delivery company is facing a class action suit over allegations that one of its power lines sparked last week’s deadly Australian bush fires which broke out in the Kinglake area of Victoria state.
Residents there are launching legal proceedings against SP AusNet over a fallen power line which is believed to have started the blaze.
Australian police have charged a man with arson causing death over one of the country’s deadly bushfires.
The 39-year-old was also charged with deliberately lighting a bushfire near Churchill, in eastern Victoria state. The blaze killed at least 21 people.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described Australia’s deadliest bushfires as mass murder.
At least 181 people were killed as the fires swept through Victoria in south-east Australia at the weekend.
Australian police have detained two people suspected of deliberately lighting one of the bushfires which savagely swept through southeast Australia killing at least 181 people and leaving 5,000 homeless.
“The investigation is in its initial stages. Two people are assisting police with inquiries,” a police spokeswoman told Reuters Thursday. Police would not give any further details.
A government official says the death toll from Australia’s worst wildfire disaster has risen to 108.
Authorities counted more victims overnight Monday as they reached further into a huge zone scorched by blazes that ripped across Victoria state at the weekend.
At least 700 homes had been destroyed in the fires that in some cases have razed entire towns.
State Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Geoff Russell said Monday that 108 deaths had been confirmed.
Australian emergency crews are stepping up their efforts to tackle wildfires that have ripped through the state of Victoria, killing 25 people.
About 30,000 firefighters are battling nine major fires, and the authorities say they expect more fatalities.
Victoria Premier John Brumby said he was considering an offer from the federal government to send in the army.
Entire townships have been destroyed in the fires, fanned by soaring temperatures and unpredictable winds.
Forecasters are predicting more extremely hot weather in the region – which has seen record temperatures of 47C (117F) in recent days.
The 38-year-old pilot of a Christmas Eve light plane crash in Northern New south Wales is recovering in hospital.
The wreckage of the single-engine Cessna was found on Christmas Day, upside down in trees north-west of Merriwa in the Great Dividing Range.
The plane’s pilot, Sydney auctioneer Scott Kennedy-Green, was winched to safety but his 32-year-old brother-in-law, Matthew Green, died at the scene.
A pilot who survived a light plane crash on Christmas eve is “devastated” that his brother-in-law died in the accident, family say.
Matthew Green, 32, a NSW builder, was killed when the plane in which he was a passenger crashed into the side of a steep ravine in rugged bushland in the NSW Upper Hunter Valley on Wednesday.
His brother-in-law Scott Kennedy-Green, 38, piloted the single-engine Cessna and remains in a stable condition in a Sydney hospital.
A trip to see Santa saved a mother and baby who would otherwise have been home when two training flights collided, sending a plane crashing into the family’s new Sydney house, killing two female pilots.
