Partically covered airstrip used for travel into the area is buried. (Photo courtesy of Al Pence)
About 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Al Pence, the SIL New Guinea Branch Director, was called to the short
wave radio for a conversation with a Baptist missionary who lived at Telefomin. He described the
landslide and stated that the Baptist mission had sent an aircraft over the area to observe what had
happened and saw that the whole village had disappeared. Al confirmed that the Steinkraus family had
recently returned to the village.
The next day, pilot Doug Hunt, along with Ken Wiggers, Al Pence, Lex Collier and Alan Healey, flew the
long trip to Telefomin in an SIL aircraft.3 From Telefolmin, Mission Aviation Fellowship shuttled the men
into Tifalmin in their Cessna 185 using the partially debris-covered airstrip. Soon Ron Carne from the
Aiyura Valley Agricultural station arrived with more men to help. The scene was utter devastation.
Never in the history of New Guinea had so many been lost in a landslide. The men spent two days
helping to dig.
3
The airplane, a Piper Aztec, would crash near Lae in 1972 and claim the lives of Doug Hunt and six more mission staff. To read
more about that crash, read ’The Hand of God’ by Charles Micheals - http://issuu.com/cbmicheals/docs/the_hand_of_god.
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