Landslide in Philippine mining area kills five

Rescuers in the southern Philippines pulled five bodies from under tonnes of mud on Friday after days of rains loosened soil and buried several houses near a mining town, police officials said.

Ronaldo de la Rosa, police chief in the Compostela Valley on the southern island of Mindanao, said local residents and volunteers continued to dig under debris of destroyed homes and mud to search for more bodies on the slopes of Mount Diwata.

"We're looking for two more bodies but there could be more," de la Rosa told reporters, adding six makeshift houses were destroyed by the landslide that hit a village on Thursday night.

"We're still trying to account for all the residents in the area to determine how many people could have been buried under the mud. Some of the residents have gone to temporary shelter areas."

Antonio Cloma of the Office of Civil Defence said there were two landslides on Mount Diwata on Thursday, one in the morning that injured seven people and another in the evening that killed five people, including three children.

Two months ago, about 20 people were killed in landslides in another mining town in the Compostela Valley, forcing authorities to evacuate two villages due to fears of more landslides in the area.

"We've been asking the people there to move to safer areas during the rainy season because of the dangers of landslides," Cloma told reporters in Manila. "But, they don't listen even if they know they're in a high risk area."

Landslides and flash floods are common in the disaster-prone Philippines during the monsoon months between May and October, particularly near mining areas, low-lying and coastal areas. 

 

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