Mother survives, her 2 children die

ILOILO CITY — A 48-year-old mother survived with minor injuries but her two children, aged 3 and 6, were killed in a landslide that fell on their house at Barangay Binanu-an in Barbaza town of Antique last Sunday dawn.

The tragedy struck at 3 a.m. when the family were still sleeping inside their house, made of light materials, which the landslide swept into a shallow cliff nearby.

Police identified the surviving mother as Tessy Agapito, while her children who died were Talia, 6, and Zandrew, 3.

Senior Inspector Horizon Villanueva, Barbaza Police chief, said the victims’father, Robert, was unable to go home the night prior to the incident due to heavy rains. He spent the night at a relative’s house in the nearby village of Bayuhan.

The neighbors of the Agapito family narrated that, after days of heavy rains, soil from the mountainous part of Binanuan eroded and destroyed the family’s house. The children could have been pinned by some parts of their wrecked house, Villanueva said.

Neighbors immediately rescued the victims and brought them to the Pedro L. Gindap Municipal Hospital in Barbaza town proper, where the children were however declared dead on arrival.

Following the incident, the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office of Barbaza initiated a force evacuation of 19 families living at the hilly portion of the village.

Two years ago, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Mines and Geosciences Bureau in Western Visayas identified 58 cities and towns in Panay and Negros islands that are landslide-prone.

Of the 58, Antique province has 11 towns deemed prone to landslides. One of these towns is Barbaza and the others are Anini-y, Laua-an, Hamtic, Libertad, Pandan, Patnongon, San Remigio, Sebaste, Tobias Fornier, and Valderrama. —