ITOGON, Benguet – On the other hand, a 30-year old pocket miner died while his four other companions were injury after a landslide triggered by continuous rains buried their temporary residence at sitioUd-udan, barangay Ampucao here Sunday afternoon.
Andrew Alex Uy, regional director of the Cordillera office of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD-CAR), identified the fatality as JovenRobizBao-anan, 30, married, pocket miner while his injured companions were named as Manuel BalangDiano, 30, married; Amos RobizBao-anan, 21, married and Glenn Bao-ananBalao, 18, married and Barton RobizBao-anan, , 17, all natives of Nueva Vizcaya, pocket miners and residents of Ud-udan, Ampucao, Itogon, Benguet.
Initial police investigation showed that the five individuals were taking their rest inside their temporary residence at the height of the continuous afternoon rains, when a mountain slope suddenly eroded and buried their house.
Barangay officials and rescuers immediately responded to the accident scene and were able to successfully extricate the four injured individuals from the debris while it took sometime for the rescuers to retrieve the body of the slain pocket miner.
Diano sustained a fracture on his right leg which resulted to his confinement at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) while his three injured colleagues sustained minor injuries that caused their outright discharge from the hospital after undergoing medical supervision.
Uy ruled that the incident was not related to the onslaught of Typhoons Egay and Falcon but it was a result of the continuous rains brought by the enhanced southwest monsoon that continues to hover over Northern Luzon.
He appealed to residents in landslide-prone areas to immediately seek safer grounds during the prevalence of continuous rains in order to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents that would result to loss of lives and damaged to properties in the future.
