Rescuers used their bare hands and shovels to dig through mud on Thursday in a desperate search for survivors of a landslide that has killed 11 people in the Philippines, officials said.
Two days after the rain-induced landslide hit the mountainous gold-mining village of Masara on southern Mindanao island, searchers were in a race against time and weather.
Latest figures from the local municipal government showed that 11 people were killed, 31 injured and 110 were still missing after the landslide destroyed houses and engulfed three buses and a jeepney on Tuesday night. The destroyed vehicles had been waiting for workers from a nearby gold mine.
“It is everybody’s hope that people are still alive,” disaster agency official Edward Macapili of Davao de Oro province told Agence France Presse (AFP).
“Our rescue team is in a hurry because every second counts when it comes to human life.”
The landslide left a deep, brown gouge down the mountain. Rescuers pulled a person alive from the mud 11 hours after it hit, Macapili said.
“So, there’s a chance,” he added.
Police, soldiers and rescuers from Davao de Oro and the adjacent Davao del Norte province have been deployed to Masara to help the search and retrieval operation.
While rescuers were using heavy earth-moving equipment in places, they had to rely on their bare hands and shovels in areas where they believed there were bodies, Macapili said.
“The soil that covered the buses was very thick — it could almost cover a two-story building,” he said.
Landslides are frequent hazards
At least 20 mine workers are believed to be entombed in the vehicles.
Landslides are frequent hazards across much of the archipelago nation due to the mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall, and widespread deforestation from mining, slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging.
The area hit by Tuesday’s landslide was about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the gold mine operated by a local company Apex Mining, and had been declared a “no habitation” zone, Maco Mayor Arthur Carlos Rimando said.
“Since 2007 the area was prone to landslides… but the livelihoods of the people are there,” Rimando told AFP.
Rain has pounded parts of Mindanao on and off for weeks, triggering dozens of landslides and flooding that have forced tens of thousands of people into emergency shelters.
Massive earthquakes have also destabilised the region in recent months, Science and Technology Secretary Renato Solidum said Wednesday.
Hundreds of families from Masara and four nearby villages have had to evacuate from their homes and shelter in emergency centres for fear of further landslides.
Schools across the municipality have suspended classes.
The state weather forecaster has also warned that flash floods and landslides caused by moderate to heavy rain could strike the province in the coming days.
“I’m worried that there will be more heavy rains,” Macapili said.
“Of course, that will affect the operations.”