DAVAO CITY—Three buses transporting a group workers of mining company in Maco, Davao de Oro, were buried in a landslide on Tuesday night.
Rescuers continue to dig through the rubble and reported that they dug six bodies so far.
Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Chairman and CEO Richard J. Gordon has ordered the immediate deployment of logistics and trained volunteers from nearby chapters to rescue the passengers of the three buses.
“We are not allowed to enter until this morning. Our team was able to retrieve two injured workers, and we are working to transport them to the nearest hospital. We have PRC Welfare Volunteers in Davao Community Hospital who provided psychosocial first aid to 10 affected individuals,” said Gordon who received the news from a satellite phone call from PRC-DMS Chapter Service Representative Marcid Van.
Gordon described the incident as a “creeping silent disaster.”
The Maco municipal government said in its first post in the website that two buses were initially reported but an information officer of the province told a television network that a total of three buses were buried.
The information officer said that the passengers were workers of a mining company operating in Barangay Masara, some 60 kilometers east of Maco town. The landslide occurred in Masara.
As of Wednesday, 31 of the bus passengers were rescued and were sent to different clinics and hospitals for treatment of their injuries.
The municipal government said 46 were missing but it could not be immediately ascertained if they were among the passengers of the three buses.
It said 758 families in the incident area were evacuated to the evacuation centers.
The landslide was triggered by the weeklong rain brought by the trough, or extension, of the low-pressure area south of Mindanao.
Before the Masara landslide, the Office of Civil Defense recorded ten dead, all accounted by Davao de Oro, formerly Compostela Valley, an interior province marked by a mountain range whose slopes have been degraded by scattered diggings decades ago by fortune hunters in search of gold and by the mining operations in this gold and copper-rich province.
Forty-five barangays had incidents of landslide, 38 of them reported in Davao de Oro. Seven landslides occurred in Davao Oriental.
Davao de Oro also reporting flooding in 38 barangays, while Davao Region had a total of 61 flooded barangays, 15 of them also in Davao City and eight in Davao Oriental.
The region reported 66 roads and road sections, and nine bridges that were rendered impassable, with the bulk of the incidents reported in Davao de Oro, with 50 impassable roads and four bridges. Houses partially and totally damaged tallied to 64 across the region.
Some 46 local governments called off classes and 26 of them also included work suspension since Wednesday and advised their constituents to resume by Monday.
The OCD also listed 413,663 residents affected by either the flood or landslide, most in Davao Oriental (184,485) because of its situation of being the coastal province facing the Pacific Ocean, and Davao del Norte (171,683) because it is the low-lying catch basin province draining the waters to the Davao Gulf.
Gordon added: “As of now, our ambulance was quite a distance away, as the roads were destroyed and very muddy due to continuous rains, but we are making efforts to transport the injured to the ambulance.”
As of Wednesday, in addition to the search and rescue operation, the PRC has also assisted the preemptive evacuation of 19 individuals from Barangay Masara in Maco and Barangay Andili in Mawab after the local government unit ordered a forced evacuation in the area.
PRC is set to send Volunteer Response Emergency Vehicles (VERV), 6×6 trucks, food trucks, water tankers, and drones, and more personnel in the area to augment its current operations.
Image credits: Malacanang Presidential Communications Office via AP