Placer emergency team helps with cleanup in PNG

An emergency services team from Placer Dome’s 50%-owned Porgera gold mine will remain in the Aitape region on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea to aid victims of tidal waves that destroyed four villages.

“We’re not in charge, but if we’re needed, we’ll be very willing to step up to the plate,” says Hugh Leggatt, a spokesman for Placer Dome.

The 16-member team joined relief workers from Australia and New Zealand two days after an undersea earthquake sent three tidal waves, one of which was at least 10 metres high, crashing into the coastal villages of Arop, Warapu, Sissano and Malol, killing an estimated 2,000 and leaving about 10,000 homeless. Another 4,000 to 5,000 are still missing.

Placer Dome’s subsidiary, Placer Pacific, was among numerous foreign companies operating in Papua New Guinea that responded to the disaster by volunteering medical supplies and personnel trained in first aid. Others included Chevron, Broken Hill Proprietary and BP Oil.

“All we did was seek clearance that we could go in there, and we moved as quickly as we could,” says Leggatt. The team, which has skills ranging from search-and-rescue to first aid, was dispatched to Aitape from the Porgera mine, about 250 km southeast of the disaster area.

Some of the team are helping recover bodies, while others are stationed at a hospital in Vanimo, 80 km from Aitape. The company sent all of the mine’s available medical stock, but thousands of victims, most of whom were swept inland into the region’s dense jungle, soon overwhelmed area hospitals and supplies. The team reported that supplies to treat the injured lasted only a few days.

Leggatt says the team will remain in the area “for as long as it seems necessary and for as long as the authorities feel we can assist them.” As the need for medical supplies and skills diminishes, Placer Dome will send other supplies, including food and water, when requested. “We feel we’re visitors in their country, in that we’re there to develop their resources,” says Leggatt. “So we feel we must take every opportunity that arises to contribute to their national life.”

The seaport region of Aitape has historical significance. It was there, and at Hollandia, that American forces landed in April 1944 to take airfields and cut off a large Japanese force.