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PHILIPPINES-TYPHOON-STORM-LANDSLIDE
Frantic dig for Philippine victims of typhoon landslide
ITOGON, Philippines, Sept 17, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Philippine rescuers used
shovels and their bare hands to claw through mounds of rocky soil on Monday
as they desperately looked for dozens of people feared buried beneath a
landslide unleashed by Typhoon Mangkhut.
Searchers have already pulled 11 bodies from the vast debris field in
Itogon, in the disaster-hit nation’s north. Up to 40 may still be buried,
with little hope they have survived.
“We believe that those people there, maybe 99 percent, are already dead,”
Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan told reporters.
He added later: “It will continue until they (searchers) surrender. There
are relatives among the rescuers who are still hoping they will be able to
find their kin alive.”
A massive hillside, weakened by the monster storm’s lashing rains,
collapsed on the miners’ bunkhouse about a half-kilometre (third of a mile)
below.
Mangkhut, the world’s most powerful storm this year, pounded the
Philippines at the weekend with torrential rains and violent winds that
snapped utility poles and sheared roofs off homes.
Authorities say dozens died in the storm, mostly buried in landslides in
the mountainous regions in the north of Luzon, the Philippines’ largest
island.
Hundreds of rescuers in rows formed a human chain to pass rocks, debris
and tree trunks out of the search area in Itogon.
The massive landslide left a gaping gash in the otherwise green hillside
that was studded with small homes topped with rusting metals roofs.
With damaged roads preventing the entry of heavy equipment, soldiers,
police and miners also used shovels and channelled water from a nearby stream
to loosen the earth.
It was excruciatingly slow work, as anguished relatives watched and waited
for word on their missing loved ones.
Residents of the remote town, in the Cordillera range about 200 kilometres
(125 miles) north of Manila, had sought refuge in the building to avoid the
wrath of Mangkhut.
The two-storey structure was an old bunkhouse abandoned by a gold mining
firm at an area that has since been settled by small-time miners, Palangdan
said.
Recovered bodies were draped in fabric and lined up in a row at a
makeshift tent on a nearby road above the bunkhouse.
Landslides and flooding elsewhere in the Philippines forced nearly 200,000
people to flee their homes, according to a police tally.
Weeks of heavy monsoon downpours had already left hillsides unstable in
the region.
Crescencio Bacalso, the governor of Benguet, a province that includes
Itogon, also cited a tragic case in Baguio, the region’s largest city, where
small-scale miners were helping to find a woman whose house had been buried.
“Unfortunately, there was a second collapse and the responders themselves
became victims of a landslide. Six of them managed to crawl out but two
others are missing,” he added.
“It rained for a month here in Benguet just before (Mangkhut) arrived, so
the ground was soggy, leading to erosion and landslides,” Bacalso said.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1556 hrs