Zambo Slide Victims Feared Dead

NO SIGNS OF LIFE: Rescuers dig for landslide victims in Bayog town in Zamboanga del Sur province.

ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR (Zamboanga Journal / 21 Feb) Hope on finding new survivors is fading as rescuers on Tuesday hopelessly searched for bodies buried under mud and boulders on a hinterland village in Zamboanga del Sur province in the southern Philippines, officials said.

The village called Depore in Bayog town, about 170 km east of here, was hit by mudslide -- triggered by days of heavy rains -- late Saturday and so far only four bodies had been recovered. Earlier reports claimed that five corpses had been found, officials said.

Maj. Gamal Hayudini, a spokesman for the Southern Command, said as many as 10 people were buried alive and that a survivor was rescued at the weekend. Dozens of soldiers and government militias assigned to secure the exploration of a mining firm TVI Resources Development Phils., continues to search for the missing, who are feared dead.

"We are praying to find more victims, but they all could be dead by now, it's been three days and hope in fiding them alive is fading away," Hayudini told the Zamboanga Journal.

Rocky Dimaculangan, TVIRD's public affairs director, four of those killed Marilyn Jimenez, 32; Julaima Carillo, 4; Richard Somondong, 30; and Dodong Ramones, 32, were part of some 3,000 illegal small-scale miners and their families in the area.

"Our security unit and personnel are helping in the search and rescue operation, and so far only four bodies and one survivor had been recovered from the mudslide," Dimaculangan said in a separate interview.

He said the TVIRD has extended financial aid for medical treatment of lone survivor Merlyn Intag, who sustained a broken leg and that his group was coordinating with the Philippine National Disaster Coordinating Council to seek further assistance for the victims' relatives.

Dimaculangan, quoting fresh reports, said the landslide area used to be a natural canal on the northeast portion of the Balabag mountain ridge that small-scale miners filled and leveled with soil and rocks.

"It was here where the miners built their houses and milling facilities, including those that were either buried or destroyed by the landslide," he said.

He said prior to the tragedy, illegal miners had put up at least 16 carbon-in-pulp plants, 25 leach tanks, and 28 rod mills with about 180 drums in the area.

TVIRD, an affiliate of Calgary-based TVI Pacific Inc., is conducting exploration since last year in the town's hinterlands. The exploration is non-invasive activities that included sampling and geological mapping of the area, Dimaculangan said.

The Balabag property is held under an agreement between TVIRD and Zamboanga Minerals Corporation (ZMC) and grants TVIRD an exclusive period of two years and nine months to assess ZMC's Mineral Production Sharing Agreement with the Philippine government.

The latest tragedy coincided with government efforts to rescue an estimated 1,800 people also buried in landslide in the farming village of Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town in the central Philippine province of Leyte.

Rescuers have been searching in vain for more survivors since Friday's landslide after weeks of heavy rains unloosened tons of earth that almost covered the entire village with mud of up to 30 feet, including a school where some 200 people are trapped.