Name: Threat of more landslides in Papua New Guinea loom as recovery mission continues
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This time, let's go to the race against time to find survivors after a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea.

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Recovery efforts in a remote, mountainous part of the South Pacific island nation are underway, but they are extremely challenging.

The government estimates the death toll could pass 2,000.

Some of the debris is estimated to reach more than two stories high.

NBC News International correspondent Kelly Kobea joins us now with the latest on this tragic story.

What is the latest on search and rescue operations?

Well, those search and rescue operations continue, Savannah, but one UN official says the hopes are diminishing of finding anyone alive.

Another saying that this is not a rescue mission anymore, that it is a recovery mission.

Now, one item of heavy machinery did reach the area.

Over the weekend, it was donated by a local building company, a local developing company, and it's simply one digger.

And the problem, really, with this disaster is that the land is still moving.

It's an extremely unstable and dangerous environment for heavy machinery.

What we've been seeing over the past several days are just local villagers using shovels, sticks, and farming equipment to try to dig through that several feet, in some cases, of debris.

And in some cases, they're also trying to move boulders, some boulders described as being as big as cars.

So a really difficult area to search and to perform any sort of rescue operation without that heavy equipment.

In addition to those problems, there are no phone communications out there.

A huge section of the main highway leading to those villages has been cut off by the landslide as well.

So the area is only accessible, really, by helicopter.

Now, the government did ask for more international help on Sunday, but there's yet another factor here.

It's really tough to get in and out of that area or even to stay in that area for international aid workers because of tribal fighting.

Aid workers have to be escorted by the military into the area and back out again.

So a very, very difficult search and rescue operation, Savannah.

Kelly, our viewers can see on our screen right now, the words along the bottom of the screen.

We say more than 2,000 people feared dead in landslide, but the United Nations is estimating the number of people killed around 670.

So that 2,000 number actually showed up in a letter written by the acting disaster management head for Papua New Guinea to the United Nations on Sunday.

Associated Press received a copy of that letter.

And in it, he said that more than 2,000 people were buried alive in the landslide.

The problem is there's no clear figure on how many people were living there in the first place.

The last census in the area was 24 years ago.

There's been a lot of movement of people in that area since, in part because of a gold mine that is in the area, people trying to take advantage of that, as well as just displacement because of that tribal fighting.

So it's difficult to get a handle on how many people were there when that landslide happened in the early hours of Friday, 3 o'clock in the morning, when most people were sleeping, if not all, Savannah.

Kelly, I understand there are concerns that a second landslide could happen.

Is there anything that can be done to prepare in case it does or even try to prevent it?

Yeah, so there's been more heavy rain, torrential rains in the area.

One official describing his biggest worry is weather, weather, weather.

They say there is water flowing underneath the debris because of all that rainfall.

There's been heavy rain for weeks over Papua New Guinea.

The debris and bodies buried under the debris are causing the land to continue moving.

There are reports of rocks still falling, of trees falling, and a real danger of another landslip, if not a massive landslide.

Again, it's one of the reasons it's so dangerous for rescue workers and also dangerous for the locals there.

The government and aid workers are trying to evacuate several thousand people right now from neighboring villages and also trying to find a way to get those survivors from the area so that they at least are safe.

Kelly Kobeya, thank you very much for your reporting here.

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