Philippines Struck by Another Deadly Landslide, Days

After Typhoon

Rescuers pulled a survivor from rubble on Thursday in Naga, a city in the central
Philippines, where a landslide killed at least 12 people.CreditCreditReuters
MANILA — A landslide struck a village in the central Philippines on Thursday, burying
up to 25 homes and killing at least 12 people. Officials said heavy rains in the days
since Typhoon Mangkhut hit the country had contributed to the disaster.

People living at the village in Naga, a small city in Cebu Province, had evacuated
before the powerful typhoon arrived on Saturday. But they returned home after the
storm largely spared Cebu and other central islands, Superintendent Samuel Tadeo of
the Philippine Bureau of Fire Protection said.

Heavy rains over the past two days apparently saturated the soil of a slope above
the cluster of houses, causing it to give way, Mr. Tadeo told a Manila radio station,
DZBB. “It has been raining heavily here,” he said. “More than 20 to 25 houses have
been buried.”

Rescue teams were trying to reach potential victims, but the work was
“very dangerous,” Mr. Tadeo said. “We have requested heavy equipment like a
backhoe, so we can penetrate further,” he said.

By early evening, eight survivors had been rescued, but dozens of people were
believed to be missing, said Garry Cabotaje, a local official.

A regional newspaper, SunStar Cebu, posted images on Twitter of

rescuers pulling a man from rubble and recovered bodies wrapped in cloth, laid
on church pews.
 A survivor was carried to safety in Naga. Many people living at the site of the landslide
had evacuated before Typhoon Mangkhut arrived, but returned home afterward.CreditAlan
Tangcawan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Naga’s police chief, Roderick Gonzales, said local officials had warned everyone
to prepare for Typhoon Mangkhut but that “their lives went back to normal” after the
storm passed.

“They did not expect the landslide to happen,” he said of the residents.
Evacuation orders were issued Thursday for dozens of other villages near the site
of the landslide.

Mr. Cabotaje said the disaster occurred on land owned by a quarrying company,
and that some of its employees were among the dead. Attempts to contact the
company, Apo Land and Quarry, were unsuccessful, but news reports quoted a
spokesman as saying that quarrying operations at the site had not yet begun.

Recovery efforts also continued Thursday at the site of another deadly

landslide, in the town of Itogon on Luzon Island, where up to 60 people who had
sought shelter from Typhoon Mangkhut are thought to have been buried in a church
and in a bunkhouse for miners.

As of late Wednesday, the typhoon was known to have killed 66 people in the
Cordillera region of Luzon, which includes Itogon, and 15 people elsewhere, including
Manila, the capital, according to the Philippine National Police. The toll was certain to
rise.
 In the days since the Itogon disaster, President Rodrigo Duterte’s government
has said it was considering tougher regulations on mining, which is believed to
contribute to landslides by destabilizing slopes in mountainous areas.

Mr. Duterte said on Tuesday that mining companies were “operating in this
country uncontrolled” and ordered officials to “take a second look” at mining
concessions across the mineral-rich Philippines.

Bodies were laid out at a chapel in Naga on Thursday.CreditAlan Tangcawan/Agence

France-Presse — Getty Images .