Landslide buries houses, displaces Mandaue families

Heavy rain over the weekend caused landslides in Mandaue and Cebu cities, displacing several families and disrupting traffic movement.

In barangay Casuntingan, Mandaue City, five families were displaced after part of a hill collapsed and buried three homes under boulders at past 9:30 p.m. last Saturday.

Mary Perlina Elga, a 55-year-old mother of nine, recounted that she heard the boulders crash at the back of her home causing her cabinet to tilt towards her children who were sleeping on the floor.

Elga woke them up and they ran outside. Her 23-year-old son Joe Carl woke up his 14-year-old brother.

“Good thing they weren’t sleeping too soundly or else one of them would have died,” she said in Cebuano.

Elga’s house and 20 others were located three meters away from the Butuanon River.

It was the second time that a portion of the hill collapsed, the first occurring in February last year when Cebu experienced an earthquake.

Another resident, Vicente Ople was rebuilding his home together with his son after it got buried in the landslide. Elga said barangay officials visited the site. No one was injured.

Senior Insp. Ramil Morpos, Casuntingan police precinct chief, placed the damages at P85,000.

Most of the houses were built with light materials.

Elga said they don’t know what they would have done if the landslide was followed by flooding.

“Ug magdungan ni, ma-trap jud mi ani (If it happens at the same time, we will be trapped by the flood and the landslide),” Elga said.

She said her family cannot go anywhere because they have no money to build a home.

The Accident Control and Emergency Rescue Team (ACERT) of Mandaue City said they have not yet received any report on the landslide.

In barangay Umapad, Mandaue City, a 40-foot buri tree fell down and destroyed two houses made of light materials that were owned by residents Arlene Hortelano and Sergio Sumalinog.

The tree also destroyed part of a nearby chapel. No one was hurt.  Umapad Batangay Captain Nelson Rubio said assistance was given to the families.

In the mountain barangay of Toong, Cebu City, 11 mahogany trees and four Gemilina trees fell down after the hill’s slope collapsed near a public school last Saturday.

The Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (CCDRRMC) said they received a report on the incident at 9 a.m.  Personnel cordoned the area in order to clear it of the trees, disrupting vehicular traffic headed to the urban barangays.

Cebu City disaster management council executive director Alvin Santillana said the drainage installed by the school leading towards the hill slope caused the land to weaken and collapse after the continuous rainfall over the weekend. /Fe Marie D. Dumaboc, Correspondent with Correspondents Joy Cherry S. Quito, Michelle Joy L. Padayhag and Norman V. Mendoza