MELBOURNE, Australia (NEWSnet/AP) — More than 100 people are believed to have been killed in a landslide Friday that buried a village in a remote, mountainous part of Papua New Guinea, officials in the South Pacific island nation said.

An emergency response is underway, officials said. 

The landslide struck Enga province, about 370 miles northwest of the capital, Port Moresby, at roughly 3 a.m., Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Residents from surrounding areas said boulders and trees from a collapsed mountainside buried parts of the community and left it isolated.

Residents said that estimates of the death toll were above 100, although authorities haven’t confirmed that figure. Some villagers and local media reports said the number of people killed might be much higher, though they did not cite sources.

The chief of the International Organization for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea said the area affected covered the size of three to four football fields, and that the village is home to 3,895 people. 

Water is inaccessible in the affected area, power lines are down, and villagers are likely to struggle with accessing food, the chief said.

Prime Minister James Marape said authorities were responding and that he would release information about the destruction and loss of life when it was available.

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