Death toll in mining landslide rises to 31

Soldiers and rescuers carry a victim recovered from the site on Jan. 6, 2012, a day after a landslide occurred at the small-scale mining community of Pantukan, Compostela Valley in southern Philippines. The death toll rose to 31, authorities said on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012. AP PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Rescuers retrieved three more bodies from a landslide that buried part of an illegal gold-mining site in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, raising the death toll to 31, officials said Sunday.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said the toll could rise with up to 39 others still unaccounted for. (Major Jacob Obligado, Civil Military Operations head of the 10th Infantry Division, said the number of missing persons went up to 45 as more relatives reported their missing family members at the incident command post set up by the Philippine Army on the grounds of the Pantukan municipal hall.)

Heavy rains sparked a landslide on Thursday that buried part of the site in the town of Pantukan on southern Mindanao island.

There had been confusion over the exact number of missing because authorities said gold prospectors do not necessarily register themselves with local authorities and no proper census was kept.

As many as 150 people were initially reported missing, but this was later pared down after many turned up and called relatives to say they were safe.

Four persons of those earlier reported as missing and have turned out alive and returned to their families included Santos Saraum Sr. and his son Santos Jr., a certain Jun-jun and Kambal, according to the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command.

“They had been warned many times not to go to the area, but they did not heed authorities,” Benito Ramos, who heads the council, said Sunday.

“The lure of gold is a magnet to these small scale miners,” he said, adding that officials as of Sunday had ordered similar sites across the mountainous area to shut down.

The Philippines has some of the world’s biggest gold, copper and nickel deposits, but most of these have remained off-limits to big mining firms partly due to local opposition over major exploration projects.

The mountainous region still draws gold prospectors from surrounding areas despite frequent, deadly landslides.

Their largely unregulated tunneling has made the mountainside unstable, government experts say, and heavy rains since last month had saturated the earth on top, triggering the deadly earthfall.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo ordered a thorough investigation of the culpability of local officials for failing to enforce the ban on human habitation in the area because of its high susceptibility to landslides.

Robredo said once proven guilty of “omission or commission,” local officials from the barangay (village) captain up to the governor could face suspension from service.