 MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Two landslides triggered by heavy rains buried more than 20 houses in a remote gold-mining village in the southern Philippines, leaving at least 11 people dead and 16 others missing, officials said Sunday.
Small stone houses and huts at the foot of the mountain village of Masara were destroyed Saturday by falling mud and rocks, killing six villagers and injuring 17 others. Another landslide struck the village early Sunday, killing five more people, officials said.
The landslides, which cascaded down a mountainside with frightening booms, buried about 28 houses and forced up to 5,000 people in Masara and nearby villages to run from their homes, said Mayor Voltaire Regalado of Maco township, which includes Masara.
Regalado said he declared a state of emergency in Masara to allow the rapid release of disaster relief funds.
Army and police, backed by two air force helicopters and workers from a gold-mining company, battled heavy rains and mud to search for at least 16 villagers who were reported to have been buried under mud and rocks, regional police Chief Andres Caro told The Associated Press by telephone.
The rescue work was interrupted Sunday afternoon by pounding rain and fears that a third landslide could strike.
Among the missing were Masara village chief Juvencio Anquera, who helped in the rescue work following the first landslide. He went missing with his two children when their house was hit by the second landslide Sunday, Caro said.
"He went home to cook food for us and his fellow rescue workers," Anquera's son, Wilkins, told reporters.
Cell phone service was lost in the disaster in Compostela Valley province, about 520 miles southeast of Manila, further hampering rescue efforts, Caro said.
Roger Corales, who escaped unharmed, said Saturday he saw people crying for help as they slowly disappeared under the falling earth, their hands grasping desperately for something to hold on to.
Among those confirmed dead were a mother and her two children. Their bodies were wrapped in blankets and laid on the floor in a candlelit village chapel.
A landslide last year killed 10 people in the same village, prompting the Bureau of Mines and Geosciences to recommend that the landslide-prone area be abandoned.
But many villagers, who depend on the local gold-mining industry for a living, refused to leave, Caro said. |