Cebu landfill landslide: Search continues for survivors

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Rescue units are still searching for survivors of the collapse.

PHOTO: NESTOR ARCHIVAL/FACEBOOK

MANILA – Rescue workers searched for survivors on Jan 9 after the collapse of a landfill in the central Philippines killed at least one person and left 38 missing.

Dozens of sanitation workers were buried in the afternoon of Jan 8 when a mountain of garbage toppled onto them at the Binaliw Landfill, a local government-run facility in Cebu, a city of around one million people and popular holiday destination.

At least 12 employees have been pulled from the garbage and hospitalised, according to a statement on the official Facebook page of city mayor Nestor Archival.

Rescue workers were “fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons”, he said.

“We don’t know what caused the collapse. It wasn’t raining at all,” said Ms Marge Parcotello, a civilian staff member of the police department in Consolacion, a town that shares a common boundary with the dump site.

“Many of the victims are from Consolacion,” she said. AFP