VALLEY LANDSLIDE
[In this photo
released by the Philippine Army, residents dig through the rubble following a
landslide that occurred at the small-scale mining community of Pantukan,
Compostela Valley, in southern Philippines Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. The landslide
occurred months after government officials warned miners that the mountain above
them was guaranteed to crumble. AP/Philippine Army, Senior
Police Officer 1 Roger Montejo]
PANTUKAN, PHILIPPINES, JANUARY
6,
2012 (INQUIRER) Agence France-Presse —At
least 25 people were killed in the southern Philippines on Thursday when a
landslide buried gold prospectors who had refused to leave an area declared too
dangerous for habitation.
Officials said up to 150 people were missing on Mindanao island after the
collapse of a rain-soaked hillside that had been settled by thousands of
migrants in search of instant riches.
Rescuers using hand-held tools pulled 25 bodies and 15 injured residents from
the rubble after the dawn landslide in Napnapan, a hamlet of more than 8,000
people near the town of Pantukan, civil defense chief Benito Ramos told AFP.
"A military unit is in the area but they are basically digging with their
hands," he told AFP.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said 150 people
were missing and that the health department was transporting 150 body bags to
the site, even as heavy rain halted rescue efforts for the rest of the day.
Local military official Colonel Lyndon Paniza, who is coordinating the rescue
from Pantukan, about two hours away via rugged mountain roads, said rescuers
fear there could be more fatalities.
"We expect many were killed since the worst-hit was the middle, where there
are more than 50 shanties," he told AFP.
The landslide buried a 7,500-square-meter (81,000-square-foot) area as people
slept, Paniza added.
The provincial government and local mining firms have been asked to bring
heavy equipment to the village.
Pantukan and nearby Monkayo, both on the west flank of Mindanao's Pacific
Cordilleras mountains, have drawn gold prospectors for years despite frequent,
deadly landslides.
Their largely unregulated tunneling have made the mountainside unstable,
government experts say, while officials also said a 2.8-magnitude quake that hit
the area about three hours earlier could have triggered the disaster.
Paniza said another landslide had occurred about two kilometers (just over a
mile) away on April 22 last year.
Local officials said that landslide had killed 14 people, while another in
2009 killed 26.
Aerial photographs released by the army showed an expanse of brown mud
crushing wooden homes and vehicles, as rescuers scrambled down dangerous,
near-vertical slopes to search the rubble.
Mines and Geosciences Bureau head Leo Jasareno said miners had been told to
leave the area as early as 2008, but local officials failed to enforce the ban.
"That place is full of tension cracks. Geologically, the stones beneath were
really fractured," Jasareno said over ABS-CBN television.
He said the ground had been saturated, with heavy rains from a storm off
Mindanao's southeast coast soaking the peaks over the past two weeks.
"We classify this as rain-induced, although structures built on the mountain
aggravated the problem," Jasareno said.
Disaster reduction chief Ramos said the victims were partly to blame.
"These are small-scale miners who tunnel into the side of the mountains like
rats," Ramos told AFP.
"It's obvious that the gold attracts them. We cannot guard the mountain 24/7
because we have other responsibilities."
The Philippines has some of the world's biggest gold, copper and nickel
deposits, according to expert estimates, but most of these have remained
off-limits to big mining firms partly due to local opposition.
The situation has let in individuals or small-scale ventures that simply
start digging on slopes and process ore using antiquated and dangerous methods.
The environment department estimates that 70 percent of all gold in the
country is produced by small-scale miners, many of them in areas like Pantukan.
The landslide came just barely three weeks after a powerful storm caused
heavy flooding elsewhere on Mindanao, killing more than 1,200 people.
Landslide kills 25 in Compostela Valley
By Dennis Santos, Frinston Lim, Jamie Elona, Nico Alconaba Inquirer
Mindanao, INQUIRER.net 8:43 am | Thursday, January 5th, 2012
PANTUKAN, DAVAO - A landslide occurred in Pantukan, Compostela Valley
early Thursday, and latest reports said at least 25 people were killed and 16
others injured.
In Manila, Philippine National Police spokesman Chief Superintendent Agrimero
Cruz Jr. said a report they received as of 10 a.m. Thursday from the PNP in
Region 11 said that all casualties were being transferred to Poblacio Pantukan.
The report also said that two choppers from Cagayan de Oro were available at
Pantukan Sports Complex and seven dump trucks have been dispatched to the
landslide site to help in the rescue of some 100 people reported missing.
Col. Leopoldo Galon, spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command based in
Davao City, said earlier that the landslides occurred following incessant rains.
Maj. Jacob Obligado, spokesperson of the 10th Infantry Division, said the
landslide happened at around 3 a.m. in Sitio Diat Uno and Diat Palo in Barangay
(village) Napnapan. Earlier reports said the landslide took place in the village
of Kingking.
"We expect more casualties as it happened in a mining community," Obligado
said,
Civilian officials could not immediately confirm the death toll but said that
initial information they received was that the number of people unaccounted for
was about 100.
Josephine Frasco, Compostela Valley social welfare official, said the
provincial government had sent a team to the area.
In April last year, a landslide occurred in Pantukan, where small-scale
miners have been digging for gold. More than a dozen people were killed in that
landslide.
Galon said the military was dispatching helicopters to the area to help in
the search and rescue operations.
Meanwhile, PNP chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome said that with all
the recent calamities that have been happening in the southern part of the
country, part of PNP's agenda for this year is to recruit trainees for the
Special Action Force and conduct training enhancement for existing personnel on
disaster response.
Bartolome said that PNP is targeting 1,600 recruits this year, where atleast
800 will be intended for SAF.
"We will train and equip them," Bartolome said.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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