Cop: Philippine villagers rejected advice to flee storm
ITOGON: A Philippine police officer who tried to persuade residents of a mining camp to move to safety as a powerful typhoon approached said they refused to leave, and a day later the storm triggered a huge landslide that buried dozens of people.
Police Senior Inspector Heherson Zambale said on Tuesday that he was stunned to learn that the massive landslide had covered a chapel and bunkhouses in the mountain village, where he and other officials had met with some of the victims a day before the tragedy struck on Saturday.
Typhoon Mangkhut, the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines this year, left at least 81 people dead and 70 missing, mostly in the avalanche in the gold mining town of Itogon in Benguet province.
Zambale said he and other local officials tried to convince the villagers, mostly smallscale miners and their families, to move to a safer
evacuation centre.
The villagers told the policemen that they thought the chapel and nearby bunkhouses were on stable ground and would only move away if the storm became severe.
Zambale, who has battled insurgents and criminals for eight years, said he had a bad feeling about the clearing where the buildings stood near a river, surrounded by tall mountains.
Some villagers heeded the warnings and left before the typhoon struck, “but many were left behind”.
Rescuers had recovered 14 bodies and at least 58 other people remained missing, Zambale added.
Regional police commander Rolando Nana said a special police unit scanned the landslidehit area with radar that can detect heartbeats, but found no sign of life.
As more than 300 rescuers, including police and soldiers, used shovels and picks to search for the missing, Zambale said he still remembered the faces of the villagers he tried to convince to flee.
“I really feel sad, I cannot describe the emotion,” he said. “It’s not only the people who don’t listen. They have children, wives, elderly parents who will all suffer.”
I really feel sad ... it’s not only the people who don’t listen. They have children, wives, elderly parents who will all suffer. Heherson Zambale