Landslide deaths hit 28

The death toll in the landslide that devastated a mining community in Maco municipality in Davao de Oro has reached 28, disaster officials said yesterday.

- JOSE RODEL CLAPANO and JOHN UNSON

Hopes for finding more survivors brightened with the rescue on Thursday of a young girl and a baby boy days after they were buried in mud and debris.

The Maco Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office said the casualty figure as of noon yesterday stood at 28.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC)’s count was a notch lower at 27 the previous day.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Mindanao forced a brief suspension of search and rescue operations in the remote gold-mining village of Masara. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the earthquake.

“We ordered them (rescuers) to go up to a safer area,” Apex Mining Co. official Ferdinand Doble told a news conference yesterday. Apex operates the mining site in Maco.

As of 11 p.m. Friday, the NDRRMC said 35 people were reported injured in the disaster and 89 reported missing. The quake epicenter was about 150 kilometers north of the landslide site.

The landslide buried homes, as well as three buses and a jeep ferrying employees of the mining company to their community.

The NDRRMC said the landslide affected a total of 1,135 families or 5,318 individuals from four barangays in Maco, Davao de Oro.

The same situational report showed a total of 62 houses destroyed.

The NDRRMC said the threeyear-old girl rescued on Friday was in stable condition after receiving medical attention at a hospital. The provincial government called her rescue “a miracle.”

The provincial government extended the search and rescue operations by another 48 hours, with more personnel and volunteers getting involved in the task.