More than 2,000 people could be buried alive by a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea last week, the government said on Monday, as treacherous terrain and the difficulty of getting aid to the site raises the risk that few survivors will be found.

The National Disaster Centre raised the number suspected buried to 2,000 in a letter to the U.N. released on Monday but dated Sunday.

A separate U.N. agency put the possible death toll much lower, at more than 670 people.

The variance reflects the remote site and the difficulty getting an accurate population estimate. PNG’s last credible census was in 2000 and many people live in isolated mountainous villages.

The landslide crashed through Yambali village in the country’s north at around 3 a.m. on Friday while most of the community slept.

More than 150 houses were buried beneath debris almost two stories high. Rescuers told local media they heard screams from beneath the earth.

“I have 18 of my family members being buried under the debris and soil that I am standing on, and a lot more family members in the village I cannot count,” resident Evit Kambu told Reuters. “But I cannot retrieve the bodies so I am standing here helplessly.”

Heavy equipment and aid has been slow to arrive due to the remote location while tribal warfare nearby has forced aid workers to travel in convoys escorted by soldiers and return to the provincial capital, roughly 60 km away, at night.

The first excavator only reached the site late on Sunday, according to a U.N. official. Six bodies have been retrieved so far.

Contact with other parts of the country is difficult due to patchy reception and limited electricity at the site, Reuters reported.

Even when rescue teams can get to the site, rain, unstable ground and flowing water is making it extremely dangerous for residents and rescue teams to clear debris, according to Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in PNG.

More than 300 people and over 1,100 houses were buried by a massive landslide that levelled a remote village in northern Papua New Guinea, local media reported on Saturday.

Hundreds are feared dead in the landslide that hit Kaokalam village in Enga Province, about 600 km (370 miles) northwest of capital Port Moresby, around 3 a.m. on Friday (1900 GMT on Thursday), Reuters reported.

The landslide in the Pacific nation north of Australia buried more than 300 people and 1,182 houses, the Papua New Guinea Post Courier said, citing comments from a member of the country’s parliament, Aimos Akem. Akem did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment via social media.

More than six villages had been impacted by the landslide in the province’s Mulitaka region, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said on Saturday.

“Australia’s High Commission in Port Moresby is in close contact with PNG authorities for further assessments on the extent of the damage and casualties,” a DFAT spokesperson said in a statement.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported on Saturday that four bodies had been retrieved from the area after emergency teams reached the sparsely populated area, where the death toll is expected to rise.

The landslide has blocked highway access, making helicopters the only way to reach the area, the broadcaster reported.

Social media footage posted by villager Ninga Role showed people clambering over rocks, uprooted trees and mounds of dirt searching for survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background.

Prime Minister James Marape has said disaster officials, the Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways were assisting with relief and recovery efforts.

Judges at the top United Nations court ordered Israel on Friday to immediately halt its military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in a landmark emergency ruling in South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide.

While the International Court of Justice, or World Court, has no means to enforce its orders, the case was a stark sign of Israel’s global isolation over its campaign in Gaza, particularly since it began its offensive against Rafah this month against the pleas of its closest ally the United States.

Reading out the ruling, World Court president Nawaf Salam said the situation in the Palestinian enclave had deteriorated since the court last ordered Israel to take steps to improve it, and conditions had been met for a new emergency order, Reuters reported.

“The state of Israel shall (….) immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” he said.

Israel had not explained how it would keep the population safe during an evacuation of Rafah, or provide food, water, sanitation and medicine for the 800,000 Palestinians that had already fled the Israeli advance, he said.

The ICJ ordered Israel to open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza to let in aid. Israel, it added, must provide access for investigators and report back on its progress within one month.

The order was adopted by the panel of 15 international judges in a 13-2 vote, opposed only by judges from Uganda and Israel itself.

South Africa hailed the ruling as groundbreaking.

A White House spokesperson said “We’ve been clear and consistent on our position on Rafah.”

The internationally recognised Palestinian Authority said it represented a global consensus that the war must end, although presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said it did not go far enough because it did not halt fighting in other parts of Gaza.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters: “We call upon the U.N. Security Council to immediately implement this demand by the World Court into practical measures to compel the Zionist enemy to implement the decision.”