25 Killed And 100 Missing In Philippine Landslide
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 2:03 am
PANTUKAN, Jan 05: A landslide struck the storm-ravaged Philippine island of Mindanao, killing 25 people and adding to destruction that has led to criticism of President Benigno Aquino’s leadership. The landslip struck a remote mountain community near Pantukan town on Mindanao island.
An army unit was digging out buried houses and bodies using shovels and other hand tools, civil defence chief Benito Ramos told AFP. The provincial government and local mining firms have been asked to bring up heavy equipment to the village, called Napnapan, to help the local army battalion speed up the rescue, Ramos added.
25 Killed And 100 Missing In Philippine Landslide
A task force is still assessing the actual number of casualties. Fourteen people were killed in a landslide on a nearby section of a mountainside on April 22 last year on top of another landslide in 2009 that killed 26 people. Authorities are struggling to help more than 400,000 people in Mindanao needing assistance after Tropical Storm Washi inundated coastal areas in the early hours of Dec. 17.
Sixteen bodies were pulled from the debris within the first five hours, but community leaders told rescuers about 100 others remained missing. The rains were unleashed by a baby storm off Mindanao’s southeast coast that later dissipated, the state weather service said.
Government officials had warned people to move to safer areas but many refused to listen. Military helicopters are now moving rescue teams from Cagayan de Oro – one of the cities badly hit by Typhoon Washi in December – to Pantukan. Arturo Uy, the governor of Compostela Valley province that includes Pantukan, said more than 100 people are believed to be still buried under the collapsed mountainside.
Washi, locally known as Sendong, killed 1,257 people in the region and fueled accusations the government failed to warn residents. Ramos however said the number of missing was an estimate based on figures from village officials. Miners had been warned previously of the danger of landslides after one struck a nearby community of gold prospectors in April, said Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje.
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