5 killed in Mt. Diwalwal landslide

DAVAO CITY – Five people were killed and several others were injured when a landslide hit a mining community on Mt. Diwalwal in Monkayo, Compostela Valley Monday night.

Chief Superintendent Andres Caro II, Southern Mindanao police director, said the landslide struck Purok 2, where small-scale miners are based, at around 7:30 p.m.

As of yesterday, Caro said the remains of only three of the five casualties, identified as Rose Mamaril, 16, Ralph Suldia, and Tata Rosales, were retrieved from the landslide site.

The two other victims were identified as Roderick Cabaluna and Marlito Bordios.

Meanwhile, brothers Jimmy and Gilbert Barera and Ronald Balsabar survived the landslide although their house was also buried in mud.

Members of the Army’s 28th Infantry Battalion and volunteer emergency response groups joined hands in retrieving the victims’ bodies.

Linda Morante, Region 11 chief of the Office of Civil Defense, told The STAR that Monkayo has been experiencing two weeks of intermittent rains due to an intertropical convergence zone and a low pressure area.

“The landslide did not occur inside a tunnel but rather in an area where the houses of the miners are located. At least three houses were destroyed,” Morante said.

At the height of the heavy rains, power was cut off for about 30 minutes, and only when electricity was restored at around 9:30 p.m. did the residents learn about the landslide.

The five fatalities occupied a house owned by a certain Indanar Jimlani, who had employed them, except for Mamaril, as “sackers.”

There have been countless landslides and cave-ins, claiming thousands of lives, since mining operations started on Mt. Diwalwal in the early 1980s.