Body of last missing miner recovered from Benguet slide

BAGUIO CITY — Police and volunteers retrieved the body of the last missing miner, who was buried in a massive landslide triggered by heavy rain dumped by Typhoon “Ineng” (international name: Goni) last Aug. 22 in Mankayan, Benguet.

The recovery of Rocky Mangrubang at noon on Wednesday ended a rescue and retrieval operation that lasted 25 days in Sitio Elizabeth in Barangay Taneg in Mankayan, said Supt. Joyce Ann Dayag, spokesperson of the Benguet police.

Rescuers, however, have not been able to recover the remains of another landslide victim, Ramil Calixto Reyes, who was buried in another section of the town.

Mangrubang was sleeping at a makeshift camp which he and 15 other pocket miners and their families pitched to shelter them from the typhoon after Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan ordered all pocket mining activities to stop.

But strong rain triggered an erosion at a nearby mountain, which toppled over the miners’ camp. “They couldn’t have foreseen that. The erosion occurred at a mountain in front of them, not the mountain that sheltered them,” Fongwan said in an earlier interview.

Fay April, Mines and Geosciences Bureau regional director in the Cordillera, said the eroded mountain in Taneg was unstable and could move again.