(Eagle News) – Thirty-one people, including 20 contractors of the Department of Public Works and Highways, were trapped and feared dead in a landslide that buried in mud and rubble the DPWH second district engineering office in Natonin, Mt. Province on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 30.
The landslide happened between 4 pm and 5 p.m., as rains and winds from typhoon Rosita (Yutu) still continued to be felt as it moved westward out of the country.
The Office of Civil Defense-Cordillera Administrative Region Director Ruben Carandang said that 31 people were inside the DPWH district engineering office in Natonin municipality when the landslide occurred.
He said there were 20 DPWH contractors, one project engineer, three security guards and seven evacuees in the building.
“Kaya po walang makaapasok sa area, kasi zigzag na kalsada yun. Yun ay 3 to 4 hours from Bontoc proper. Walang makapasok na responders,” Carandang said in an interview by GMA 7.
“It was not an evacuation center. But some sought shelter there unfortunately,” he said in another interview by Agence France Presse.
Initial reports said that there were three people confirmed dead in the landslide.
Search crews were just beginning to assess the damage wrought by the passage of Rosita (Yutu) which made landfall early Tuesday with sustained winds of 150 kilometres (95 miles) per hour and gusts up to 210.
Authorities have already confirmed a father and three young children were killed in a landslide in Banaue, just south of the buried public works building.
Another landslide killed a 5-year-old girl in a neighbouring province, police said.
(with a report from Agence France Presse)
