What went before
On July 10, 2000, a garbage avalanche at the Payatas dump in Quezon City killed more than 200 persons and buried thousands of homes. About 80 bodies had not been found.
The 50-foot mountain of packed trash collapsed after a week of heavy rain caused by Typhoons “Ditang” and “Edeng,” burying Sitio Pangako, a
squatter’s colony hosting as many as 3,000 people.
Scavengers said fissures started forming days earlier atop the dump, until it finally collapsed in the morning of July 10 over an area estimated to be about the size of four basketball courts.
Some residents compared the landslide to a plane crash, while others said it was “like a wall falling on top of us.”
In 2004, the Quezon City government erected a marker on the site of the tragedy in memory of the victims.
The city government also said that it had been eyeing the conversion of the Payatas open dump into a sanitary landfill since 2002.
Source: Inquirer Archives
