Quakes halt search at deadly Philippines landslide site

MANILA - Earthquakes in the southern Philippines halted a search on Feb 10 for scores of people believed buried in a deadly landslide, forcing rescuers to temporarily vacate the area, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from

the magnitude 5.8 quake that shook the Mindanao region

at 11.22am, or from a second magnitude 5.4 tremor that followed about two hours later.

However, rescuers were ordered to stop their search in the remote gold-mining village of Masara.

A massive landslide buried a bus terminal and 55 houses

near an Apex Mining gold mine on Feb 6 night, killing 35 people, mostly miners, and leaving 32 injured, according to an updated official tally.

Hundreds of rescuers are searching for miners and residents believed buried under the rubble spread over 8.9 hectares at the bottom of a wooded mountain valley.

“We ordered them (rescuers) to go up to a safer area,” Apex Mines official Ferdinand Doble told a news conference.

Rescue efforts resumed nearly three hours later after officials became satisfied the quakes would not cause more landslides, Edward Macapili, spokesman for the provincial disaster office of Davao de Oro province told AFP.

Despite the authorities recovering seven more bodies since the first quake, rescue officials decided to keep the estimated number of missing unchanged at 77, he said.

The stronger quake’s epicentre was in the mainly rural municipality of Esperanza, about 150km north of the landslide site, with the second to the east.

Rescuers found a three-year-old girl alive

on Feb 9 after nearly 60 hours under the rubble, but mostly they have only been finding bodies.

“We’re still hoping to save more people even after four days,” Davao de Oro disaster chief Randy Loy told the news conference.

However, “we can’t really guarantee their chances of survival” after 48 hours, he said, adding that 474 rescuers were deployed at the Masara landslide.

Military rescuers were set to employ specialised equipment, their commander, Brigadier-General Ronnie Babac, told the news conference.

That included thermal scanners that can detect signs of life beneath the rubble as well as specialised “snake cameras”, also known as borescopes, designed to peek into confined spaces.

Landslides are a frequent hazard across much of the archipelago nation due to the mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall, and widespread deforestation from mining, slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging.

Rain has pounded parts of Mindanao on and off for weeks, triggering dozens of landslides and flooding that have forced tens of thousands of people into emergency shelters.

Massive earthquakes have also destabilised the region in recent months. AFP