A Philippine police officer who tried to persuade residents of a mining camp to move to safety as a powerful typhoon approached on Tuesday said they refused to leave and a day later the storm triggered a huge landslide that buried dozens of people.
Police Senior Inspector Heherson Zambale said in an interview that he was stunned after learning that the massive landslide had covered a chapel and bunkhouses in the mountain village where he and other officials had met with some of the victims a day before the tragedy struck on Saturday last week.
Typhoon Mangkhut, the most powerful storm to hit the Philippines this year, left at least 81 people dead and dozens of others missing, mostly in the avalanche in the gold-mining town of Itogon in Benguet province.
Photo: AP
The storm later blew on to Hong Kong and southern China, where it caused more deaths and damage.
Zambale said he and other local officials tried to convince the villagers, mostly small-scale miners and their families, to move to an evacuation center as the typhoon approached.
A villager officer who accompanied Zambale used a megaphone to warn people that Mangkhut was extraordinarily powerful and everybody should leave, he said.
The villagers told the police officer that they thought the chapel and nearby bunkhouses were on stable ground, and that they would only move away if the storm became severe, he said.
Zambale said he saw about 15 villagers outside the chapel and bunkhouses.
“Some were smiling and there were some who were just quiet. Some were listening to us,” he said.
Police photographs showed the officers in hard hats and light green raincoats talking with the villagers outside of what appears to be the concrete chapel and nearby bunkhouse, with piles of sandbags nearby.
Part of the mountain slope, covered in green foliage, can be seen behind the buildings.
Zambale, who has battled insurgents and criminals for eight years, said he had a bad feeling about the clearing where the buildings stood near a river, surrounded by tall mountains.
Some villagers heeded the warnings and left before the typhoon struck.
“But many were left behind,” Zambale said.
Rescuers have recovered 14 bodies from the avalanche and at least 58 other people remain missing, he said.
Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan on Monday said it was unlikely any of the missing were still alive, although rescuers continued to search.
Police Commander Rolando Nana said a special police unit scanned the landslide-hit area with radar that can detect heartbeats, but found no sign of life.
As more than 300 rescuers, including police and soldiers, used shovels and picks to search for the missing, Zambale said he still remembers the faces of the villagers he tried to convince to flee.
“I really feel sad, I cannot describe the emotion,” he said. “It’s not only the people who don’t listen. They have children, wives, elderly parents who will all suffer.”
Sitting in a lotus position, four men weave glittering beads through gold thread on an organza sheet, carefully constructing a wedding dress that would soon wow crowds at Paris Fashion Week. For once, the French couturier behind the design, Julien Fournie, is determined to put these craftsmen in the spotlight. His new collection, which showed in Paris on Tuesday, was entirely made with fabrics from Mumbai. He said that a sort of “design imperialism” means that French fashion houses often play down that their fabrics are made outside France. “The houses which don’t admit it are perhaps afraid of losing their clientele,” Fournie
A court in Thailand sentenced a 27-year-old political activist to 28 years in prison on Thursday for posting messages on Facebook that it said defamed the country’s monarchy, while two young women charged with the same offense continued a hunger strike after being hospitalized. The court in the northern province of Chiang Rai found that Mongkhon Thirakot contravened the lese majeste law in 14 of 27 posts for which he was arrested in August last year. The law covers the king, queen and heirs, and any regent. The lese majeste law carries a prison term of three to 15 years per incident for
A gunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration, setting off a manhunt for the suspect in the latest mass shooting tragedy in an American community. Captain Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the wounded were taken to hospitals and their conditions range from stable to critical. He said the 10 people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park. Meyer said people were “pouring out of the location screaming” when officers arrived at around 10:30 pm Saturday. He said officers then
INSTABILITY: The country has seen a 33 percent increase in land that cultivates poppies since the military took over the government in 2021, a UN report said The production of opium in Myanmar has flourished since the military’s seizure of power, with the cultivation of poppies up by one-third in the past year, as eradication efforts have dropped and the faltering economy has led more people toward the drug trade, a UN report released yesterday showed. Last year, the first full growing season since the military wrested control of the country from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, saw a 33 percent increase in Myanmar’s cultivation area to 40,100 hectares, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report said. “Economic, security and governance disruptions
RSS