PHOTO: PHILIPPINE ARMY / AFP
Rescuers used their bare hands and shovels to dig through mud on Thursday in a desperate search for survivors of a landslide in the Philippines as the death toll rose to 10, officials said.
Two days after the rain-induced landslide hit the mountainous gold-mining village of Masara on southern Mindanao island, searchers were in a race against time and weather.
At least 10 people were killed and 31 injured when the landslide destroyed houses and engulfed three buses and a jeepney waiting for workers from a gold mine on Tuesday night, according to the latest figures released by the Maco municipal government.
Ninety people have been reported missing, disaster agency official Edward Macapili of Davao de Oro province told AFP, citing police data.
The municipal government has 49 people missing.
"It is everybody's hope that people are still alive," Macapili said.
"Our rescue team is in a hurry because every second counts when it comes to human life."
The landslide left a deep, brown gouge down the mountain. Rescuers pulled a person alive from the mud 11 hours after it hit, Macapili said.
"So there's a chance," he added.
Police, soldiers and rescuers from Davao de Oro and the adjacent Davao del Norte province have been deployed to Masara to help the search and retrieval operation.
While rescuers were using heavy earth-moving equipment in places, they had to rely on their bare hands and shovels in areas where they believed there were bodies, Macapili said.
"The soil that covered the buses was very thick -- it could almost cover a two-story building," he said.
'LANDSLIDES FREQUENT'
At least 20 mine workers are believed to be entombed in the vehicles.
Landslides are frequent hazards across much of the archipelago nation due to the mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall and widespread deforestation from mining, slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging.
The area hit by Tuesday's landslide was about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the gold mine operated by a Philippine company Apex Mining, and had been declared a "no habitation" zone, Maco Mayor Arthur Carlos Rimando said.
"Since 2007 the area was prone to landslides... but the livelihoods of the people are there," Rimando told AFP.
Rain has pounded parts of Mindanao on and off for weeks, triggering dozens of landslides and flooding that have forced tens of thousands of people into emergency shelters.
Massive earthquakes have also destabilised the region in recent months, Science and Technology Secretary Renato Solidum said Wednesday.
Hundreds of families from Masara and four nearby villages have had to evacuate from their homes and shelter in emergency centres for fear of further landslides.
Schools across the municipality have suspended classes.
The state weather forecaster has also warned that flash floods and landslides caused by moderate to heavy rain could strike the province in the coming days.
"I'm worried that there will be more heavy rains," Macapili said.
"Of course that will affect the operations."
