Close call: Granny clings to tree branches to avoid fatal fall

A mansanitas tree has saved the life of Celia Abendan when she fell into the cliff after her shanty collapsed in Barangay Pit-os, Cebu City on Wednesday morning. Abendan is now taking shelter at the village chapel. Photo by Junjie Mendoza / CDN

CEBU CITY — An elderly woman cheated death on Wednesday morning when her shanty located at the edge of a cliff in Sitio Tapuko, Barangay Pit-os, Cebu City collapsed.

Celia Abendan, 83, clung to the branches of a mansanitas tree on the side of the cliff, preventing her from falling down and into the river below.

Nagiel Bañacia, head of the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CCDRRMO), said the house collapsed due to the poor foundation and not because of Tropical Depression “Samuel” although it was raining when it happened.

Abendan lived alone in the shanty after her husband left her several years ago and her four children had families of their own.

She said she was about to enter the shanty at past 9 a.m. after cooking breakfast in the dirty kitchen outside when the structure’s wooden posts broke.

Abendan fell into the cliff but was caught by the branches of the mansanitas tree that grew on the side of the cliff, about three meters from the house.

She held on to the branches so she would not fall into the river, about 15 meters below until the local disaster team rescued her about an hour later.

Abendan is now taking shelter at the chapel in Sitio Tapuko.

She was thankful at the mansanitas tree.

“If there was no mansanitas tree, I would have fallen below,” she said in Cebuano.

Pit-os Councilor John Christian Asignar, one of the barangay officials who responded to the area, said they were now appealing for Abendan’s relatives to adopt her.

“As of now, we sent a request to DWUP (Department of Welfare and Urban Poor) to assess if she (Abendan) can return and rebuild her house (on the same area),” he added./lb/ac