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Topic: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole town (Read 426 times)

Pau
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Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole town
« on: Feb 19^th, 2006, 5:13pm »

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Faint sign of life in buried school Scratches heard, hopes raised for over 200 pupils

First posted 01:41am (Mla time) Feb 20, 2006
By Volt Contreras, Vicente Labro, Jani Arnaiz
Inquirer

FORWARDED text message from the dead: Maam, we are still under the school. Please help us, maam. This is Edilio Coquilla. Please maam. EDWIN BACASMAS

ST. BERNARD, Southern Leyte -- Rescuers racing against time said yesterday they heard "scratches" indicating signs of life apparently coming from a schoolhouse buried in a landslide with over 200 children and teachers inside it.

The Guinsaugon Elementary School (GES) in this town had been the emotional focus of search and rescue operations after a deadly avalanche of mud and rocks swamped Barangay Guinsaugon and buried close to 2,000 people. Many of the villagers were feared killed.

"It went on for more than a minute. It was like a sheet of metal being scratched," mountaineer Lieutenant Rted Esguerra, a member of the Philippine Coast Guard medical corps, told reporters.

Asked if the sound indicated signs of life, Esguerra said: "Maybe, it's feasible."

His remarks clashed with an earlier statement by a Philippine National Red Cross official who said rescuers he had talked to told him that "indications will tell that those down there are all dead."

Romeo Orilla, information officer of the PNRC team at the disaster scene, said the school was located with the help of two dogs.

Orilla said he was quoting Raul del Mar, head of the Bureau of Fire Protection's search and rescue team based in Cebu.

Esguerra, for his part, said he was with another rescue team composed of seven members and that four of them, including himself, had heard the scratching sound between 2:30 and 3 p.m. while they were in the area where the schoolhouse was believed buried.

He said they were using instruments called Delsar, a life detection device consisting of sensitive microphone probes buried in the ground.

But Esguerra, a member the Mountaineering Federation of the Philippines, could not say how far down the scratching sound had come from or if a human being was responsible for it.

A Philippine Air Force officer, who asked not to be named and who was in a separate rescue operation, said the sound need not necessarily indicate human movement.

"It may just be running water or insects," said the officer.

Asked at a press briefing last night if there was still hope of finding survivors, provincial Governor Rosette Lerias emphatically replied: "Of course, that's why we're still here."

She recalled that in similar disasters, like the landslides that hit Quezon province in 2004, four children were recovered alive after 10 days under the rubble.

"Why can't we do that in Southern Leyte, if God wills it so?" she said.

Under 30 meters of mud

In a phone interview, Hector Reyes, head of the Philippine K9 group involved in the search, clarified that no part of the school building had actually been reached by the rescuers.

Reyes said his team, with the help of three local guides and two dogs, only verified the specific mud-swamped area under which the school had stood.

Reyes said that as per readings made by special instruments brought to the site by another rescue team, the school lay beneath "25 to 30 meters" of earth.

Orilla said the school's location was verified at around 11 a.m. yesterday and that volunteers made several attempts to dig but these only resulted in "cave-ins."

The teams gave up at around 3 p.m.

'Please help us, ma'am'

The school's position was ascertained on the same day a local education official showed the Inquirer "a text message" which she said she received last Saturday -- or a day after the landslide -- from a teacher trapped beneath the rubble.

Erlinda Diaz, district supervisor for the town's 27 elementary schools, said a message in Visayan that registered on her Sony Ericsson mobile phone read (in English): "Ma'am, we are still under the school. Please help us, ma'am. This is Edilio Coquilla. Please ma'am."

Coquilla is a volunteer teacher in the GES pre-school class, she said.

Diaz said she got the message "as forwarded" by the original recipient Delia Prieto, principal of the St. Bernard Central Elementary School. Prieto got the original message at around 1 p.m. Saturday and relayed it to Diaz at around 9 p.m. that same day, Diaz said.

Lerias said the thought that children could still be alive under their mud-covered school had kept rescue teams going.

But the search and rescue effort was turning into massive retrieval operation as rescue teams had been unable to find a single survivor. What they found instead were bodies in their muddy graves.

As of 4 p.m. yesterday, the disaster coordinating center at the municipal hall had reported 72 bodies recovered while 941 were still missing. The number of survivors stood at 415.

About 1,500 people from different barangays (villages) were being treated in evacuation centers.

Mass grave

Twenty-seven bodies that remained unidentified were buried in a mass grave at the public cemetery at 4:30 p.m. yesterday, after health officials raised fears of the spread of diseases if the bodies remained exposed.

"Imagine if we can find them alive, there are over 200 of them trapped inside the school," Lerias said. "I asked the people to please help us in praying that these students and teachers are all alive."

Tunnel planned

People involved in the rescue operation in the area where the semi-concrete school building was buried said they planned to build a tunnel to reach the victims below, believing there were high chances they could find people alive.

The search and rescue team, which included Filipino military groups, emergency response teams, mountaineers and miners, was assisted by American and Malaysian rescue experts.

Aside from Philippine Air Force helicopters, also involved were four Sea Knight helicopters from a US group belonging to the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Rains blamed

Captain Burrel Parmer, public affairs officer of Exercise Balikatan, said the Pentagon and the US Embassy were very much concerned about the situation.

As the government began its investigation into the incident, some survivors and residents of this town still believed it was the constant rains, coupled with a mild tremor, that had pushed the earth down onto their community.

The avalanche left an area of 8 square kilometers covered with mud as deep as 15 meters.

Some survivors told the Inquirer that after about three weeks of rains, a mild earthquake shook the mountain and the landslide occurred.

Adrian Fuego, regional chief of the Office of Civil Defense, said he was informed yesterday that the national government, through the National Disaster Coordinating Council, would begin its probe of the landslide on orders of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Initially, he said, people at the regional Office of Civil Defense were working on the theory that "because of the rain, water saturated the place and loosened the earth."

He added that another theory was that the earthquake triggered the landslide.

In December 2003, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources warned that this town was among the "geohazard" areas in the country. This was shortly after a killer landslide occurred on Panaon Island, this province.

On the other hand, according to the US Geological Survey, "landslides can be initiated by rainfall, earthquakes, volcanic activity, changes in the groundwater, disturbance and change of the slope by man-made activities, or a combination of these factors."

Sensors from Taiwan

A life-saving machine from Taiwan was on the way to St. Bernard yesterday.

The equipment can detect movement under the ground and would be very crucial in locating those buried in the mud in Barangay Guinsaugon, officials said.

Rescuers have not been able to use heavy equipment to dig in the collapsed earth because the ground was still soft.

"If there is life underneath, they can be detected by these sensors," Defense Secretary and National Coordinating Council Chair Avelino Cruz Jr. said.

Rumsfeld's promise

More help was on the way to Barangay Guinsaugon.

Some 40 seasoned miners from the Philippine Mining Safety and Environment Association left Manila yesterday with their ropes and drilling equipment. They had been involved in previous rescue operations in the country.

Cruz said US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had promised help.

The Leyte landslide again raised the perennial question of how Divine Providence could allow such a tragedy, more so in a province repeatedly battered by disasters.

Maasin Bishop Precioso Cantillas said: "Even in these most painful times, we believe that God continues to love all of us, especially those who are severely affected."

"While such faith is tested by this disaster, we humbly ask the God of mercy and love to sustain us in our faith and to remain constant in our hope for a better life and even everlasting peace."

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Addams
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Re: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole
« Reply #1 on: Feb 20^th, 2006, 3:52pm »

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I have been sending prayers and thinking of you Pau and all the phillipino posters here at forumsnet. I am sorry to hear of this tragedy.

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Pau
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Re: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole
« Reply #2 on: Feb 20^th, 2006, 4:38pm »

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thank you very much... :hug:

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Rhune
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Re: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole
« Reply #3 on: Feb 21^st, 2006, 9:12am »

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Has there been any more news? It would be wonderful if they managed to get some people out alive from the school.

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Deekeryu
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Re: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole
« Reply #4 on: Feb 21^st, 2006, 12:30pm »

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Hope everyone turns out okay.

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Pau
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Re: Landslide in a Philippine island buries whole
« Reply #5 on: Feb 21^st, 2006, 8:53pm »

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Hopes fade of finding new survivors in Leyte landslide
Arroyo, Marcos visit relief center

First posted 01:08pm (Mla time) Feb 22, 2006
Associated Press

GUINSAUGON -- Rescuers searched the site of a buried village Wednesday amid fears that time has run out for finding survivors of last week's massive landslide, while the Philippine president visited the command post for the recovery efforts.
Teams of Philippine soldiers and US Marines, along with Malaysian and Taiwanese experts, had suspended the search overnight, fearing the rain was making the area prone to further landslides. Also, a small generator used to light the area ran out of fuel.

The Marines have been unable to use their large generators because they shake the wet ground, making it more unstable.

An earthmover used in the search broke down Tuesday night, and US servicemen clustered around the vehicle on Wednesday, trying to fix it.

In a grimly familiar routine, Philippine soldiers began digging with shovels after daybreak, while Taiwanese emergency teams set up sensors, hoping to detect sounds of survivors below the surface.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited the headquarters of the relief operation, about one kilometer (0.6 miles) from the village. She received a briefing from the provincial governor, shook hands with US Marines and other rescue workers, and met local residents.

Imelda Marcos, wife of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, arrived separately and kissed Arroyo on the cheek before the President left.

No one has been found alive since just hours after a mountainside collapsed Friday in a wall of mud and boulders that swamped the farming village of Guinsaugon on Leyte Island.

The official death toll has reached 107 but officials fear it could surpass 1,000.

Rescue workers have struggled to find a mud-swamped elementary school since the disaster, uncertain if they were even digging in the right place.

A Philippine mining engineer, Melchor Taclobao, said searchers on Tuesday had abandoned the spot where they were digging after hitting ground level, about 20 meters (66 feet) down.

No structure was found, he said, so they started digging at another spot 100 meters (330 feet) away. A flag of blue plastic marks the new site.

High-tech gear detected some underground sounds late Monday, creating a buzz of excitement and adrenaline among troops, miners and volunteers whose hopes of finding life had all but vanished.

By Tuesday, the buzz was gone again, replaced by a grim workmanlike attitude.

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