Davao de Oro landslide deaths soar to 98; over 5,300 in evacuation centers

GROUND ZERO Responders, backed by heavy equipment, comb the ground zero of a massive landslide in the village of Masara in Maco, Davao de Oro, in this photo on Feb. 10, four days after the tragedy struck. The landslide killed nearly 100 people with more than 30 others still missing. —FRINSTON LIM

TAGUM CITY — Two bodies have been found by responders at a landslide-hit village in Maco town, Davao de Oro on Saturday, bringing the death toll of the Feb. 6 disaster to 98, local disaster officials said.

In a 7 p.m. bulletin on Saturday, the Maco local government said the number of missing persons was also down to only nine.

Leah Añora, head of the management of the dead and the missing (MDM) cluster of the incident command team, said ten of those retrieved were body parts.

She said nine people remain unaccounted for, which included four residents, four agency-contracted workers of Apex Mining, and one regular employee of the mining company.

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At least seven search and retrieval teams are currently doing “excavation works” at the ground zero of the disaster, said Ariel Capoy, Maco disaster response officer.

The landslide dumped over 33 meters thick of mud, soil, and other debris on a ten-hectare area in Masara following weeks of rain and buried several buses, a jeepney, and some 55 houses.

It has displaced 1,503 families comprising 5,378 individuals from five villages who are now staying at evacuation sites in Mawab town, said Joel Penido, disaster response cluster head.

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