PANTUKAN, Compostela Valley―Hopes of finding more survivors of the Good Friday landslide in a remote gold mining area here dwindled Sunday as rescuers dug out four corpses from the mud, officially bringing the death toll to five.
Lt. Col. Lyndon Paniza, spokesperson of the 10th Infantry Division, said the search-and-rescue operations had shifted to search and retrieval despite hopes that the missing ―officially pegged at 17―were still alive.
SLIM CHANCE Rescuers on Saturday stand next to a landslide which buried small-scale miners in a gold-rich area in Kingking village of Pantukan town in Compostela province. The official death toll from the April 22 disaster stood at five but Pantukan Mayor Celso Sarenas warned that the chance of more survivors being pulled from the debris was slim. AFP
Rescuers and volunteers armed with shovels and backed by heavy equipment continued to comb through the hardened mud in search of more corpses Sunday afternoon.
“We are not stopping until we get the bodies. [But] we are not losing hope that there are people still alive,” Pantukan Mayor Celso Sarenas said at a news conference.
The four bodies were identified by the municipal social welfare office as those of Brendo Dane, 26; Marjun Guilabtan, 20; Marvin Anglai, 19; and Relieto Tabag, 29.
Two of the bodies were located as early as Saturday but could not be retrieved immediately due to the thick mud enveloping them.
The other fatality, who was found and retrieved hours after the 2:30 a.m. landslide, was identified as John Ric Torrejos, 15. His father Cristituto Sr. and brother Cristituto Jr. are among the 17 missing.
As the day wore on with no signs of additional survivors, Rhona Theresa Siojo of the municipal social welfare office said it was possible that all the missing were dead.
Fifteen miners have been rescued from the muck since Good Friday.
Evacuation
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje, who had flown in from Manila, said he had ordered the evacuation of some 30 households from Sitio Panganason in Barangay Kingking after the discovery of a 70-meter-wide, meter-deep fissure on the face of the mountain that caved in on Good Friday.
The fissure was discovered by workers of Apex Mining, which the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had asked to conduct a risk assessment in the area.
Apex Mining risk manager Ford Hipolito said the soil above the fissure could “go down any time.”
“Due to the crack, the soil will give in, aggravated by movements in the area. Starting from the crack, these areas will go down,” Hipolito said.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, who had also visited the disaster area, told reporters that the miners would be ordered to leave.
“We will ask them to leave voluntarily. If they insist on living there, we should force them out,” said Robredo, who met with Compostela Valley officials.
He said the evacuation should be implemented within a 48-hour period starting Monday, and that it was for the best interest of the people in the disaster area, whether mining operators, miners, or plain residents.
Robredo, however, clarified that the forced evacuation was not a prelude to the total shutdown of mining activities in Panganason. “[The issue] has to be discussed thoroughly,” he said.
He added that local officials should work with the DENR, which would “determine where mining can be safely done.”
Higher number
Survivors and officials said the number of people buried under tons of mud in Panganason could be higher than estimated.
Rico Clase, a survivor, told the Inquirer from his hospital bed that some 60 people went to work in the mining tunnels before the landslide occurred.
Backing Clase’s story, survivor Lambert Detros said: “From where I was staying atop the camp, with my spotlight on, I saw the people passing by, moving in and out of the steep and narrow paths.”
Clase said more people arrived in the mining area on Thursday evening. “Apparently, they also slept there,” he said.
Mayor Sarenas admitted receiving reports that there were fresh arrivals in the mining area prior to the landslide. He had said earlier that many of them had not registered with community officials.
Compostela Valley Gov. Arthur Uy said he was also not discounting the survivors’ suspicion of more fatalities.
“It could be more than [the estimates]. There is a possibility the number is greater than what we have thought,” Uy said.
But Joel Lapatis continued to hope that his missing brothers Joenil, 21, and Andy, 28, were alive.
Joel, 26, is working as a volunteer in the search operation despite the bruises and contusions he suffered when the landslide swept their shanty away.
Jay Salonga, another miner who had joined the rescue efforts, occasionally called out the names of his missing friends.
“Please show yourselves,” he said periodically.
No ban yet
In Manila, President Benigno Aquino III’s deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte said the government was intent on rescuing the people trapped in the landslide.
“Our focus now is search and rescue,” Valte said in an interview over state radio dzRB.
She said the government had yet to discuss the prospect of banning mining in landslide-prone areas in Compostela Valley in order to prevent a repeat of the landslide in Pantukan.
“All I know is that the province itself has called for a ban. However, at the level of the national government … we haven’t discussed it yet,” she said.
Valte pointed out that the President had directed Environment Secretary Paje to lead the search-and-rescue efforts.
“We need stricter enforcement [of safety rules on mining] to avoid a repeat of the incident,” she said.
Paje also told reporters of the crack in the mountain that could collapse any time due to the rains that had battered eastern and central Mindanao.
“The order from President Aquino is to minimize casualties,” he said, adding that the area where the landslide occurred had always been a critical geological hazard area.
Paje said national and local officials had agreed to immediately remove residents on the mountain slope.
“The decision is to evacuate them immediately,” he said. “If the residents refuse, the local government has agreed to forcefully evacuate them.”
He said some 30 houses were still standing in the landslide area, and that the safety of the residents there “is of the highest priority.”
Small-scale miners
But members of the Panganason Smale-Scale Miners Association led by Omar Ocampo are worried that the government would use the string of events starting on Good Friday to bar them from the mining area.
Ocampo also cited Governor Uy’s order for a 30-day halt to mining in Panganason and other parts of the province, which, he said, was a prelude to the dislocation of small-scale miners and the entry of multinational mining companies.
The Save Pantukan Alliance, speaking through Rolando dela Cerna, said the Aquino administration itself was against small-scale mining, “categorically saying that our operations are harder to regulate compared to those of large mining operations.”
“It did not even consider that we have long been waiting for the government to do its role in developing and rehabilitating the small-scale mining industry so that we could better contribute to national development and change the practices that affect the environment,” Dela Cerna said.
Despite the danger, hundreds of impoverished villagers have dug for gold in narrow, dangerous shafts in remote barangays like Kingking for years.
Many have ignored warnings and defied occasional government crackdowns on illegal mining by the undermanned military and police.
“They tell us they would rather die in a disaster than die of hunger,” Mayor Sarenas told The Associated Press.
Survivor Clase, a grade school dropout, said he would return to the disaster-prone area and resume gold mining. He said he knew no other way to escape from poverty.
A fellow miner, who slept beside him in their hut, remains missing.
“My companion told me he wanted to start digging early so he went to sleep ahead of me,” Clase told The Associated Press by phone. “They haven’t found him.” Reports from Frinston Lim, Rosa May de Guzman-Maitem, Dennis Santos and Jeffrey Tupas, Inquirer Mindanao; Christine O. Avendaño and Kristine L. Alave in Manila; and Associated Press