PANTUKAN, Compostela Valley – Twenty-nine year old Rico Clase had to swim his way through the moving avalanche of mud and was lucky that rescuers found him before he was buried alive.
Clase said he was sound asleep after a drinking spree with fellow miners when he heard a rumbling sound early morning on Good Friday.
“I was roused by the loud sound,” he said.
Clase said he was stunned to find himself suddenly pushed out of his hut by the onrush of mud.
Before he could find out what was going on, the veteran of two landslides struggled to stay on top but the black avalanche that cascaded down the slopes eventually engulfed him.
“I struggled to free myself from the moving avalanche by moving my arms and feet furiously until my fellow miners found me and pulled me out of the mud minutes later,” Clase said in the vernacular.
Fifteen-year old Zeffrey Tundag had looked forward to his first day as miner Friday when the disaster occurred.
Tundag said he was sleeping inside a hut with his uncle and another relative when he heard the rumble.
“The next thing I knew was that I was already half-covered with mud and rocks and our bunkhouse swept several meters downhill,” he said in the vernacular.
His relatives and fellow miners dug him up from the debris.
Clase and Tundag were among at least 9 people plucked out of the debris shortly after the disaster hit the mining village of Panganason here around 2:30 a.m.
But a lot of people remained missing as officials put the number to at least 22.
Rescuers – backed by canines – are now using heavy equipment to locate the missing victims.
US-based St. Augustine Gold and Copper Mining Ltd. Also sent volunteers to the disaster area to help in the search and rescue operations.
But Clyde Gillespie, a St. Augustine official, clarified that the landslide area was not inside the mining company’s area of operation.
“The landslide is in a very remote area called Upper Lumanggang, some distance away from areas in which (Nationwide Development Corp.) and St. Augustine are conducting environmental and engineering studies in the King-king tenement,” Gillespie said in a statement.
Mayor Celso Sarenas said the one-hectare wide mud flow engulfed dozens of huts and other structures – which had people inside.
“The day before the landslide occurred, there were dozens of transients who arrived in the area and most of them had not registered,” he said.
Sarenas said the number of people killed in the landslide was uncertain and that the earlier figure of 27, which he confirmed to reporters, was erroneous.
He said he based the earlier death toll figure from data gathered by barangay (village) health workers.
In a text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Saturday, Sarenas acknowledged that the figure was wrong and that only one body, that of 15-year-old Junrex Torrejos, had been recovered so far.
Like most of the victims, the teenager was asleep inside their hut with his father, Cristituto Sr., 42, and his 9-year old brother, Cristituto Jr. when the avalanche of mud and rocks cascaded, his cousin Rachel Torrejos said.
Colonel Roberto Domines, commander of the Army’s 1001st Infantry Brigade, said days of intermittent rains seeped into the cracks in the hundreds of mining pits dug up by small-scale miners and triggered the deadly mudflow.
Torrejos’ body was found hours later, while his father and brother were among those missing to this day, Domines said.
“Junjun [Junrex’s nickname] would usually go up to the mountain during school vacations to help his father, who operated an ore processing plant and a tunnel in Panganason,” said 35-year old Rosalie Abios, a distant relative of the victims.
Abios’ live-in partner and another kin were among those missing too.
While families are still grieving for their missing relatives, officials said the death toll could be enormous, especially that bodies could still be under the hardening mud a day after the disaster occurred.
Sarenas also said the local government has not been remiss in warning small-scale miners of the danger in the area especially during rainy days.
“They’re too hard-headed. We have already advised them to leave the area as it has become too dangerous, but still they persisted on staying as long as they can extract gold there,” Sarenas said.
He said Pantukan has been a witness to countless landslides of varying magnitudes since gold was first mined at the municipality’s mountain villages over 20 years ago.
“Just two years ago a landslide also occurred in Kingking and nearby Napnapan village, killing at least 26. Now, here we are again,” Sarenas said.
But for Clase, the prospects of earning good money outweighed the dangers posed by mining.
“What I have been thinking is that dangers are everywhere. If it’s your time, you’re not safe even in areas you think are safe,” he said.
“The lure of gold, now priced at P2,000 per gram, also pushed miners even from far places to try their luck in Kingking and other gold-rich villages in Pantukan,” Sarenas said.
While Clase anticipated that he would be dealing with a similar disaster in the future as a small-scale miner, Tundag was visibly traumatized by the landslide.
“I don’t know if I still want to become a miner after what happened,” he said from his bed at the Pantukan District Hospital here, where he was being treated for cuts and bruises in the arms and face.
Compostela Valley Governor Arturo Uy said he ordered a 30-day halt in all mining operations in the gold-rich areas of the province in the wake of the Pantukan landslide.
Uy said his order would be implemented as soon as he met with town officials.
To ensure that the order is enforced, Uy said he would be tasking the police to shut down all mining operations.
Frinston Lim with reports from Dennis Santos and Allan Nawal, Inquirer Mindanao