(Manila) Philippine emergency services described “a miracle” Friday following the rescue of a child nearly 60 hours after a landslide that left at least 11 dead and more than a hundred missing in the south of the archipelago.
A girl, whose age has not been revealed, was found by rescuers digging with their bare hands and shovels for survivors in the mining village of Masara in southern Mindanao island, Edward Macapili, head of the Davao de Oro province disaster management agency, told AFP.
“It’s a miracle,” Mr. Macapili said. “It gives hope to the rescuers. A child’s resilience is generally lower than that of adults, and yet the child survived,” he added.
A video showing a rescuer holding the crying and mud-covered child was shared on Facebook.
“We can see from the social media posts that the child has no visible injuries,” Mr Macapili said.
The survivor’s father saw his child before she was taken for a medical examination, he said.
At least eleven dead
The landslide, caused by heavy rains, occurred on Tuesday evening, destroying houses and swallowing up three buses and a vehicle picking up workers from a gold mine.
At least 11 people were killed and 31 injured, while more than a hundred are still missing, according to official data.
Rescuers are racing against time to find other potential survivors in the thick mud as rain continues to fall in the region on Friday.
Landslides are common across much of the Southeast Asian archipelago due to mountainous terrain, heavy rainfall and deforestation from mining, slash-and-burn agriculture and logging. illegal logging.
Heavy rains in parts of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second largest island, for weeks have caused dozens of landslides and floods that have forced tens of thousands of people to seek refuge in emergency shelters. .
Hundreds of families from Masara and four neighboring villages had to evacuate their homes and take refuge in emergency centers for fear of further landslides.
Nearby schools have suspended classes. The area affected by the landslide had been declared “prohibited for construction” after previous landslides in 2007 and 2008, Mr. Macapili said. “People were asked to leave this place and they were given a place to settle, but people became stubborn and came back,” he said.