Hundreds Flee As Landslide Hit Zamboanga Village

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 3, 2008) – Hundreds of villagers were evacuated Thursday after a landslide hit a remote mountain village in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines, officials said.

Torrential rains the past days loosened mud and boulders in the village of Muti, east of Zamboanga. There were no reports of casualties or injuries in the landslide, but many houses were either destroyed or damaged and more than 80 families have fled from the area and sought safe refuge in government schools, a village leader, Kalid Yausin, said.

Last month, a pregnant mother and her child were killed after a landslide buried their house in the hillside village of Maasin. Heavy rains triggered by typhoon Fengshen had loosened soil that buried the house of the Candado family.

The typhoon, whose local codename Frank, had left a trail of deaths and destruction in the Philippines. The death toll across the country could reach to hundreds after a 24,000-ton ferry, the Princess of the Star, with nearly 750 aboard capsized off Sibuyan Island in Romblon province as the typhoon battered central and northern Philippines before heading towards Taiwan. (Mindanao Examiner)