Hope fades in the Philippines for dozens trapped by landslides
TYPHOON MANGKHUT AFTERMATH Rescuers dig out 11 bodies from a former miners’ bunkhouse
ITOGON, PHILIPPINES: A Philippine mayor said Monday that it’s unlikely any of the dozens of people feared buried in a huge landslide set off by Typhoon Mangkhut will be found alive, though rescuers are still digging through the massive mound of mud and debris covering a chapel where they had taken shelter.
Mayor Victorio Palangdan of Itogon town in Benguet province, among the worst-hit by the typhoon that struck on Saturday, said there is a “99%” change that the 40 to 50 poor miners and their families thought buried are dead.
Mangkhut is confirmed to have killed 65 people in the Philippines. The storm killed four other people in China, where Mangkhut weakened to a tropical storm as it churned inland Monday.
Palangdan said rescuers have dug out 11 bodies from the landslide, which covered a former miners’ bunkhouse that had been turned into a chapel. Dozens of residents sought shelter there during the storm despite warnings it was dangerous.
“They laughed at our policemen. They insisted,” he said. “They were resisting when our police tried to pull them away. What can we do?”
Hundreds of rescuers armed with shovels and picks, including police and soldiers, searched for the missing in the muddy avalanche along a mountainside as grief-stricken relatives waited nearby, many of them quietly praying. Bodies in black bags were laid side by side. Those identified were carried away by relatives, some using crude bamboo slings.
Jonalyn Felipe said she told her husband Dennis, a smallscale gold miner in Itogon, by cellphone to return to their home in northern Quirino province on Friday as the powerful typhoon blew threateningly close toward the country.
Palangdan told reporters that authorities “will not stop until we recover all the bodies.”