Rescue efforts to dig out possible survivors buried under the rubble of a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are facing significant dangers and challenges, a United Nations official said on Monday.
The landslide struck PNG's Enga Province in the early hours of Friday while many people were asleep at home. One village was entirely flattened by the torrent of mud and debris.
Rescuers are battling in the face of adverse weather conditions and the risk of further landslides, said Serhan Aktoprak, Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the Pacific island country.
If the region experiences any more rainfall in the near future, it could lead to an unprecedented disaster, he added.
The PNG National Disaster Center has confirmed that more than 2,000 people were buried alive in the landslide.
Rescue efforts at PNG landslide site face significant challenges: UN official
Rescue efforts at PNG landslide site face significant challenges: UN official
The decline in the prices of commercial residential homes in China's 70 large and medium-sized cities stabilized on a month-on-month basis in September, according to official data released on Friday.
In the country's first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, new home prices edged down by 0.5 percent, compared with a 0.3-percent drop in the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Second- and third-tier cities both registered declines of 0.7 percent month on month, with the former matching the decline from the previous month, while the latter improved from a 0.8-percent drop in August.
In September, prices of resale homes in first-tier cities fell by 1.2 percent month on month, with the decline widening by 0.3 percentage point compared to the previous month, the NBS said.
In the second- and the third-tier cities, resale home prices both fell by 0.9 percent month on month. In second-tier cities, the decline narrowed by 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month, while in third-tier cities, the decline remained unchanged from the prior month.
China's home price decline stabilizes month on month in September: official data
