Boy killed in Catbalogan landslide

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—An eighth-year-old boy was killed  Tuesday after he was buried in mud and rocks in a mountain village on the outskirts  of Catbalogan City, Samar, the authorities said.

Aldin Abancia was running after his father, Eduardo, 37, and elder brother Eduardo Jr., 10, who had gone out of their house at the foot of a hill in Barangay Bunuanon around noon when the landslide struck,  according to the Office of Civil Defense in Eastern Visayas (OCD-8).

Cherlyn Lubang of the OCD-8 told Inquirer that Eduardo and Eduardo Jr. had just gone out of the house when Aldin decided to run after them even if it was drizzling. She did not know where the father and son were heading.

“It was so sudden that the father was only able to get hold of Eduardo to escape and forget his other son, who was covered with rocks and mud,” said Lubang.

Lubang said the boy was still alive when extricated from under the debris by villagers, policemen and Army soldiers some three hours after the landslide. He was rushed to the Samar Provincial Hospital in Catbalogan City where he died at 4:45 p.m.

The landslide may have been caused by incessant rains in the past days, which loosened the earth, she added.

It was the second landslide in Catbalogan in a span of two months.

Last October 21, rains triggered a landslide in Barangay Guinsorongan that killed a woman and her three children.