Body of last missing worker found in Leyte landslide site

KANANGA, Leyte, Philippines  â€“ Retrieval teams finally ended yesterday their long hours of finding bodies of workers buried in a landslide that struck the geothermal complex of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) here last week.

This, after the remains of one Jorden Salcedo – the 14th fatality and the last of those missing – were dug up yesterday morning. The previous day, the body of a certain Salvador Yabana was found.

Amid this development, environment officials have belied allegations that the landslide caused boron, a toxic chemical, to contaminate a nearby river.

In a report, the Environmental Management Bureau and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) noted discoloration of rocks but attributed this to “weathering from natural elements.”

Provincial board member Bodjie Tiu, who heads the board’s environmental committee, said he gathered from MGB chief Ceferino de la Cruz that boron levels in the area were “normal” and that boron emissions naturally occur in geothermal sites and volcanic systems.

This was corroborated by EMB regional chief Leticia Maceda, who said water samples taken from Bao River tested negative for contamination.

Maceda though added that a parallel sampling and testing will still be done in a laboratory in Manila “just to make sure that the river is free of toxic chemicals.”

Earlier, EDC executive vice president Ernesto Pantangco said in a text message to The STAR that there was “no contamination as the steam supply pipe was shut down right after the incident.”

Pantangco said boron is not used in operating the pipeline but is “part of heavy metals in saturated steam.”    

Meanwhile, on wild talk that an explosion of unknown origin caused the landslide, Alberto Ignacio Jr., senior vice president of EDC subcontractor First Balfour, said that “pending proper investigation, we cannot ascertain yet when that sound of explosion happened.”  – With Rhodina Villanueva