5 villagers dead in Lanao del Sur landslides due to heavy rains

Five villagers were buried alive after mud and rocks from a hill, loosened by heavy rains, cascaded with force into their yards and hit their houses in Barangay Ngingir in Calanogas, Lanao del Sur, before dawn Friday, July 10. Ranking employees of the Calanogas Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and the spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Capt. Steffie Salanguit, separately told reporters at noon Friday that the landslide was caused by heavy rains spawned by the Super Typhoon Inday (international name: Bavi) that started to pummel southern cities and provinces late Wednesday. Salanguit, citing an initial report by officials of the Calanogas Municipal Police Station and Lanao del Sur’s provincial police director, Col. Caesar Cabuhat, said the cadavers of the five landslide fatalities, Norhana Ali, Akmad Camar, Naifa Mansawi, Juhary Muhshin and Norhaya Camar, were recovered a few hours later by barangay officials and policemen who responded to the incident. Local executives in Calanogas said six Maranao villagers, Mujahid Abdulmajid, Mobairah Abdulrashid, Norhasan Abdulrashid, Arab Lilikan, Norlin Ali and Norhanima Ali, whose houses were covered by the mud and rocks the fell from uphill following two days of recurring downpours, are still missing. The disaster left two villagers injured, according to barangay and municipal officials. The heavy rains since Wednesday in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces, both also in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, spawned rampaging floods and caused dozens of rivers in both areas to overflow, affecting more than 30,000 villagers, according to BARMM officials. Army Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Police Brig. Gen. Christopher Abecia, director of PRO-BAR, had separately dispatched emergency responders from units under them to support the disaster response operations of local government units in the flooded towns in the two provinces. Cagara said soldiers from units of 6th ID in Maguindanao del Sur towns that are near the 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Delta, a catch basin for large rivers that spring from hinterlands in Bukidnon, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato, are using rubber boats in evacuating villagers from flooded villages to relief sites.