Mindanaotoday.com | 5th body dug up at landslide area in Bukidnon town
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – After 12 days of no let-up search for five missing persons, search and retrieval teams at the landslide site in Mabuhay village of Malitbog town, Bukidnon finally found the remaining body, that of a dump-truck driver on Saturday, October 29.
The retrieval of the last missing body, incidentally, came just four days before All Soul’s Day.
Lieutenant Danilo R. Sabornido Jr., Municipal Police Station officer-in-charge, said the retrieved cadaver was that of Raffy Lague Simprota, 35, of Kalingking village and a municipal government employee.
Sabornido, in a Malitbog MPS official report posted online, said the corpse was positively identified by Simprota’s uncle, Rudy Dominguez, a municipal council member.
With this, Mayor Gary D. Casiño stopped the search and retrieval operations, but road clearing from detritus – boulders, rocks, stones, sediments – would go on to make the ground zero passable to motorists again.
Buried alive with Simprota in debris pile that was brought downhill from a landslide scarf, just past noon of October 17, were Nerio Talines, 50, a backhoe operator; Vincent Jordan Achas, 30, a road clearing aide, all municipal government employees, and a childless Lauronal couple.
The three workers from the Municipal Engineering Office were at a house by the hill belonging to the Lauronals, 54-year old Lucresio and 52-year old Angelita, resting after having cleared the road from sediments of stones and thick mud caused by previous night’s heavy rainfall, when the massive landslide occurred.
Casiño told reporters who were at the scene on Day 2 that immediate search, rescue and operations would be risky since no one knew if the downhill flow of earth materials has totally stopped because it was raining then.
Worse, the municipal government’s backhoe was underneath the rubbles too and the partially damaged dump truck has yet to be recovered – the vital equipment in responding to natural disasters such as this. And the operator and driver for these were among those missing.
Private firm Sta. Clara International Corporation came to the rescue with its backhoe equipment and operator.
In the afternoon of October 18 (Day 2), Achas’ body was found, on October 19 (Day 3) that of Angelita’s and then on October 22 (Day 6) that of Talines’ and Lucresio’s in the morning and afternoon, respectively.
Other than the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) and the Municipal Health Office of Malitbog, personnel from the 16th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, Philippine Coast Guard Districts in Northern Mindanao and South Eastern Mindanao, and the Bureau of Fire Protection Malitbog composed the search and retrieval teams.
Sniffing dogs from the PCG’s K-9 Field Operations Unit helped in the search and retrieval of four bodies.
On Day 8 (October 24), a six-member team with five K-9 dogs from Metropolitan Manila Development Authority-Muntinlupa came over to augment the teams who were combing the thick landslide mass that has concealed a stretch of paved road in the area.
Personnel from the Bukidnon Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and MDRRMO Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental joined in the first days of search and retrieval operations. (MT)
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