Police say it is unclear if 17 missing passengers are still alive or wounded, and may be hiding in bushes or sheltering with neighbouring clans

At least seven people were killed and more than a dozen remain missing after gunmen ambushed a public bus and shot passengers in Papua New Guinea’s Enga province.

The shooting took place in Enga’s Lagaip district on Tuesday afternoon. More than 20 passengers were on the bus when men armed with high-powered weapons “set up an ambush and fired shots indiscriminately” into the vehicle, highland western end assistant police commissioner Joseph Tondop said in a statement on Wednesday.

Officials are still trying to pinpoint the exact death toll, as rescue teams are set to begin using heavy machinery to recover the dead

Officials in Papua New Guinea have said they do not expect to find survivors under the rubble of a massive landslide in the country’s remote north, with the exact number of dead under almost two storeys of debris and mud still unknown.

Heavy equipment and aid have been slow to arrive to the site of the landslide – which hit almost a week ago – because of the treacherous mountain terrain, a damaged bridge on the main road, and tribal unrest in the area.

Blocked roads have hampered relief efforts to Yambali village, where officials fear death toll could reach well over 100

An emergency convoy is delivering food, water and other provisions on Saturday to stunned survivors of a landslide that devastated a remote village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea and is feared to have buried scores of people, officials have said.

An assessment team had reported “suggestions” that 100 people were dead and 60 houses buried by the mountainside that collapsed in Enga province a few hours before dawn on Friday, according to Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in the South Pacific island nation.