More than a dozen bodies were pulled from the mud on Monday
the Philippines:
The death toll from a landslide in a gold-mining village in the southern Philippines rose to 68 on Monday, officials said, as searchers gave up hope of finding more survivors.
Hundreds of rescuers spent nearly a week searching for those buried in a landslide in the Masala mountainous region of Mindanao last Tuesday, using their bare hands, shovels and heavy earth-moving equipment.
More than a dozen bodies were pulled from the mud on Monday and 51 people, including miners and villagers, are still missing, according to official data released by the city government.
“It’s been almost a week since the incident… We assume that no one is alive there,” Edward Makapili, spokesman for the Davao Oro provincial disaster office, told AFP.
“There is already a bad smell in the area, so recycling needs to happen quickly.”
Makapili added that an area about 50 meters (164 feet) deep remains to be searched.
A three-year-old girl was pulled alive from beneath the rubble on Friday in what rescuers called a “miracle.”
The landslide buried three buses and a jeep waiting for employees of a gold mining company and 55 nearby houses, injuring 32 people.
Authorities vowed to continue searching until all missing persons were found.
Landslides are a recurring hazard in much of the archipelago nation due to mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall and widespread deforestation caused by mining, slash-and-burn farming and illegal logging.
Parts of Mindanao have been hit by intermittent rains for weeks, triggering dozens of landslides and flooding and forcing tens of thousands of people into emergency shelters.
Massive earthquakes have also destabilized the region in recent months.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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