Search and retrieval operations for fatalities of the tragic landslide in Naga City, Cebu, may be stopped on Wednesday afternoon, even as at least 10 people still remain unaccounted for.
Concepcion Ornopia, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Region 7, said the decision to stop the operations at Barangay Tinaan will be formally declared in a news briefing at midnoon today (Wednesday) in Naga City.
“It was a collective decision. Officials from the region down to the local government unit will be there. It will just be a one declaration to stop both the search and rescue,” she said on Tuesday.
Ornopia said the collective decision to halt the retrieval operations was forced by the assessments of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau that the areas surrounding ground zero are also already risky for the responders.
“The land is too soft, that is why the retrieval operations have to stop even at the slightest rain. This is the reason why the search and rescue have to be stopped already,” she said.