Mindanaotoday.com | 2 more bodies exhumed at landslide site
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Search and retrieval teams at the landslide site in Mabuhay, San Luis village in Malitbog, Bukidnon unearthed Saturday (October 22) two cadavers, that of a backhoe operator and a farmer who were buried alive along with three others last Monday, October 17.
Vice Mayor Catherine Dela Rosa-Arguelles said the corpses were recognized by family members as that of 50-year-old Nerio Talines of the municipal engineering office and that of Lucresio Lauronal, 54, a farmer.
“He was a silent and diligent worker,” said Dela Rosa-Arguelles, a former municipal administrator, and expressed her profound condolences to the family of Talines, Lauronal as well as to the other victims of Monday’s tragedy.
The vice mayor joined Mayor Gary Casiño in clarifying that, prior to Talines and Lucresio Lauronal, only two of the five missing persons have been retrieved, that of Vincent Jordan Achas, 30, road maintenance worker last Tuesday and Angelita Cabanday Lauronal, 52, the next day.
Dela Rosa-Arguelles said that what was dug out late Thursday afternoon was a severed leg which was later identified to be that of Angelita, and not of a still-to-be-identified corpse. Thus, Talines’ body was the third and of Lucresio Lauronal the fourth to be retrieved, as of Saturday.
Rescuer Jerel Dela Cruz, in a Brigada News FM Cagayan de Oro interview, said it was Talines’ hand that first surfaced which led them to excavate and recover the entire cadaver in the morning.
The body of dump truck driver Raffy Simprota, 34, also with the municipal engineering office is still the object of a let-up search and retrieval operations.
The childless Lauronal couple owned the house near the ground-zero where the three MEO personnel were resting after having cleared the road that was blocked by debris of rocks and mud brought downhill by Sunday’s heavy rains.
Though the Lauronals adopted a boy and a girl, the former has settled down in San Luis village proper while the latter, still a student, has been staying with her stepbrother’s family.
Meanwhile, on Friday, October 21, Department of Information and Communications Technology-10 personnel installed a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) – a two-way station that transmits and receives data from satellites – near the landslide site which has been a dead-spot.
With the VSAT, the Office of Civil Defense-10 donated two satellite phones to the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office to facilitate and speed up the transmission and reception of electronic messages.
Both the OCD and DICT regional offices recognize communication as a vital component in disaster response, search, rescue and retrieval operations.
Due to Monday noon’s avalanche, the road at Mabuhay landslide area has been impassable to all vehicles and clearing it would take some time. (MT)
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