TRANSCRIPT
For the past week, Robert Alembo has been digging through the rubble left behind by the landslide that struck a remote village in northern Papua New Guinea.
Among the worst natural disaster in the country's history, the death toll is between 670 and 2,000.
Robert is searching for the bodies of around 20 relatives.
"The landslide is like, it's not really kind of a soil movement or like ground movement. It is a huge mounted that with hard rock that all of a sudden it just fell down in the middle of the night so far using bush materials and using lines and all that. We were trying to dig them out with our bare ends. We have retrieved over around six to seven body years of yesterday. None of them survive. All of them are buried."
It is not only the death of loved ones that has him grieving, but the destruction of the land that has left almost 8,000 people without a home - 42 per cent of them children.
It has also taken away their key source of income, with 80 per cent of the country's population reliant on subsistence agriculture to earn a living.
Robert says the future is uncertain.
"The land is our life, so our future is gone and it got a very big impact that will live with us for the rest of our lives. The Fed Island people survive on, it's completely wiped out."
Fears of a disease outbreak has added to the list of immediate challenges facing survivors and emergency responders.
The waterlogged terrain is prone to another landslide - in the event of heavy rain.
That along with a damaged bridge and tribal unrest in the area has made it hard to retrieve many of the bodies buried under the rubble.
Heavy earth moving equipment and aid have been slow to arrive.
As soon as PNG's government issued an official request for assistance, Australia joined aid agencies in supplying aid, including hygiene kits.
A team of Australian geotechnical experts are also surveying the area to assist in the aid and recovery effort.
Angela Kearney is the representative of the UN agency for children, UNICEF in Papua New Guinea.
She says the aid response needs to consider both the physical and mental needs of survivors - including the more than 3,300 children impacted.
"We've flown into Port Moresby, some school-in-a-box. We think that it's really important to get kids back into school very, very quickly. The stories that I've been told are quite sad, where children left the site and went to other relatives or somewhere else and for a couple of three days, and then they've just returned and they're just staring into space saying nothing."
Seven days after the landslide, Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, James Marape, is visiting Enga province to see the impacts firsthand.
He has been criticised for waiting too long to make the visit, adding to political pressure he is facing after he had been due to face a vote of no confidence in parliament earlier this week.
That didn't happen after the parliamentary session was adjourned.
Andrew Anton Mako at the ANU's Development Policy Centre, says there is frustration that it has taken as long as it has to mobilise the emergency response by the PNG government.
"The government could have done better. I think in other countries you would've first responders and the government authorities on the ground within 24 hours at least, right? Yeah, that never happens. Or there is a lot of frustration among the population that the government didn't do well in terms of responding to the disaster. PNG is prone to disasters. We have had many disasters over the years, so the government could have put in place the systems and structures and mechanisms in place, resources allocated already."
He says the focus right now needs to be on ensuring the proper relief reaches survivors so they can recover and heal.
Robert Alembo says he hopes no more time is wasted in helping survivors.
"At this moment. People, they don't have houses, they don't have food, they don't have water. Everything is under the ground and about the bodies and all that. It does have an effect on the health of the people as well, so it is very dangerous as well. So, the government needs to set up health facilities. The sooner the better."
