landslide in a mining site in Compostela Valley today killed at least
25 people while more than 150 others remained missing, police said.
In an interview, Davao Region police chief Jaime Morente said rescuers
recovered 25 dead bodies from the gold-rich village Panganason, a
hinterland barangay in Pantukan town.
Morente said search team, including local miners, launched intensive
efforts to rescue possible survivors. But he pointed out that rescuers
have hard time in reaching the area due to its unfriendly terrain.
Heavy downpour brought about by the hovering Low Pressure Area (LPA)
in Mindanao may have caused the mining site to collapse, burying
dozens of shanties above it.
In a report, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council
said the incident happened in Diat 1 to 700 Panning area around 3 a.m.
NDRRM executive director Benito Ramos said rescuers reported that more
than 150 others remained missing.
"Our rescuers recover 15 person alive," said Ramos in a press briefing
before noon today.
The area has already been declared as a geo-hazard site last October.
The incident was the second landslide to hit the area in less than a
year.
In April 2010, at least 20 people died when parts of a mountain
collapsed, burying houses above it.
Mindanao braces for more floods, too
Meantime, authorities are tightly monitoring the level of rivers
criss-crossing several towns in Maguindanao and Cotabato City as they
could swell fast during heavy downpour.
Brig Gen. Manuel Ochotorena, assistant division commander of the
Army's 6th Infantry Division, directed military units in Maguindanao
and in North Cotabato to immediately report noticeable rise in the
levels of water in Liguasan Marsh.
He said there is much reason to be apprehensive of floods in low-lying
towns in Central Mindanao and several barangays in Cotabato City.
This as most rivers that spring from Bukidnon, North and South
Cotabato drained at Liguasan Marsh, whose downstream flow to the Moro
Gulf passes through rivers traversing farming communities in the
Central Mindanao.
If flooding occurs, Ochotorena said the Army units in the towns of
Pikit, Pagalungan and Montawal were tasked to immediately evacuate
local residents in villages near the Liguasan Delta and rivers that
fuse to Rio Grande de Mindanao.-- With Dennis Carcamo
