Landslide death toll rises to 37
SEARCH and retrieval operations for scores of people buried in a landslide that struck the upland mining town of Maco, Davao de Oro province, six nights ago has yielded 37 bodies with 63 others still unaccounted for, disaster officials reported on Sunday.
The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office updated its death toll at 12 noon Sunday as efforts to retrieve more bodies continued at the landslide site in Barangay Masara, just outside the gold mining area of Apex Mining Cop. Inc.
The landslide occurred in the evening of Feb. 8 amid heavy downpour, injuring 32 people. Thirty-one of those who survived were rescued by first responders.
The area has been a vehicle terminal for buses and jeepneys servicing its employees as well as members of the community, Apex said in a statement, noting that the incident buried two of its service buses which were carrying workers at the time.
The village, which had a population of 1,125 as of May 2020, was also the site of two landslides in September 2008 that killed 24 people and left two missing. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza