SYDNEY, March 5 (Reuters) - Strong aftershocks rocked Papua New Guinea's remote and rugged highlands on Monday, as the death toll climbed to 55 from a 7.5-magnitude earthquake a week ago, and is expected to rise further. Three aftershocks of magnitude greater than 5 shook the mountainous Southern Highlands, about 600km northwest of the capital Port Moresby early on Monday, the US Geological Survey said, including a shallow magnitude 6 quake. “We haven't slept. It's been shaking all through the night,” William Bando, provincial administrator of Hela Province, said by telephone from Tari, about from the site of the shocks. “What we experienced this morning could have caused more damage, but we don't know ... it almost threw me out of bed.” The region had already been badly damaged on February 26, when the largest quake to hit the seismically-active highlands in nearly a century flattened buildings, triggered landslides, and closed oil and gas operations. The toll on Monday stood at 55 killed, said James Justin, a research officer at the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in Port Moresby, as news of more deaths arrived in the capital by shortwave radio. Most of the confirmed fatalities were in and around the provincial capital of Mendi and the township of Tari, he said, where landslides buried homes and buildings collapsed on families.
