HADR training, exercises with U.S. support PNG’s response to deadly landslide

FORUM Staff

Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) and other emergency personnel responding to a devastating landslide incorporated techniques and expertise honed during regular training and exercises with United States military and other partner agencies.

Meanwhile, aircraft and other assets from the U.S. and Indo-Pacific Allies and Partners transported disaster management experts, relief supplies and search-and-rescue equipment to the remote highland province of Enga, where up to 2,000 people are feared to have been buried under mud and rubble in late May 2024. The death toll remained unclear two weeks after the landslide.

Rescuers responded swiftly despite logistical challenges such as a collapsed bridge and blocked roads, as well as the threat of more landslides, Defence Minister Dr. Billy Joseph said, according to the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier newspaper.

Joseph said officials activated emergency protocols in Enga and dispatched a team from the PNGDF Operations Command and the National Disaster Centre in the capital, Port Moresby, about 600 kilometers to the south.

U.S. officials in PNG are coordinating with their counterparts from the other member nations of the Quad partnership — Australia, India and Japan. “Part of what the United States will be doing through our efforts is coordinating the last-mile logistics for the relief supplies provided to PNG by the Quad partners,” Mira Rapp-Hooper, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia and Oceania, said in early June.

The member states in 2022 signed guidelines for the Quad Partnership on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) in the Indo-Pacific.

“Behind the scenes, over the course of the last three years, the Quad has been working to improve its capability to respond to humanitarian and disaster scenarios so that … we would be better equipped to work together to coordinate our assistance,” Rapp-Hooper told the news organization Nikkei Asia. “We’ve actually seen those guidelines in practice, really for the first time.”

Just weeks before the landslide, PNGDF and U.S. military personnel completed a HADR exercise in Port Moresby. The 11-day training, conducted under the nation’s Defense Cooperation Agreement signed in 2023, included sharing expertise in areas such as medical evacuation, patient care and delivering assistance.

“In Papua New Guinea, we have a lot of disaster relief needs, incidences where disasters tend to happen,” PNGDF 1st Lt. Heydan Chan, an exercise liaison officer, said in a news release. “The knowledge that we leave behind for each other … does benefit the PNGDF and the United States.”

PNG “is one of the most hazard prone countries in the world,” with its 10 million people regularly exposed to earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides, as well as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones and heatwaves, according to Geoscience Australia. The government agency assists PNG in building communities’ capacity to mitigate against natural hazards.

The recent HADR exercise was the latest in an expanding series of bilateral engagements with the U.S. designed to bolster PNG’s preparedness and response capabilities. In April 2024, U.S. Army physicians, surgeons, nurses and other medical specialists worked for 10 days with the medical staff at Port Moresby General Hospital.

The Disaster Response Exercise and Exchange, hosted by the PNGDF and the U.S. Army in Port Moresby in June 2023, included an exercise simulating a disaster scenario to enhance practical skills and decision-making.

A month later, volcanic eruptions at the island’s Mount Bagana subjected thousands of residents in the Bougainville region to lava, gas, steam and ash. At PNG’s request, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided $200,000 for shelter kits and other emergency supplies. U.S. Marine Corps and Navy personnel and assets, including the amphibious assault ship USS America, MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, deployed to deliver relief supplies to remote locations.

USAID, which announced an initial $500,000 in humanitarian aid after the landslide, including emergency shelter supplies, and water, sanitation and hygiene assistance, is helping PNG to build resilience to climate-related threats, including providing disaster preparedness and response support to thousands of residents over more than a decade.

The agency, which opened an office in Port Moresby in 2023, also supports infrastructure projects such as the PNG Electrification Partnership, under which Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. pledged to assist in providing electricity access to 70% of Papua New Guineans by 2030, up from about 13% in 2021.

The Hawaii-based Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM) partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard to lead an HADR workshop in Port Moresby in October 2023. Participants from the PNGDF, the PNG National Disaster Management Office and National Disaster Centre, the Australian Defence Force, the U.S. Army and the United Nations, among other organizations, enhanced response capabilities and fostered civilian-military collaboration and interoperability.

The workshop was part of the long-running Pacific Partnership, the U.S. Navy’s biggest annual multinational HADR mission in the Indo-Pacific.