Typhoon Mangkhut Death Toll Mounts As Dozens Of Bodies Pulled From Landslide
Two days after Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into the remote Philippine town of Itogon, causing part of a mountain slope to collapse on a gold miners’ bunkhouse, grim reports circulated that more than 40 people had been pulled from the wreckage. None of them were alive, authorities said Monday.
Rescue workers said previously that up to 50 people, including children, were believed trapped in the wreckage. At least 43 bodies have since been recovered, The New York Times reported, potentially doubling the country’s death toll from the storm.
Emergency workers in the Philippines recovered 43 bodies from the muddied wreckage of a gold miners’ bunkhouse after Typhoon Mangkhut set off a landslide https://t.co/8DKJvYB983
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 17, 2018
Hundreds of emergency workers were at the site of the bunkhouse on Monday removing rocks and debris by hand ― hoping against hope that survivors could still be found.
But Itogon mayor Victorio Palangdan struck a somber tone at an afternoon news conference, saying he was “99-percent sure the people there are dead.”
Update: We’re at Itogon, #Philippines. Landslides buried a village here, trapping miners in a bunkhouse and people in a church. Rescue workers trying to clear mud and debris, but the scale of the disaster is both wide and sad. @nbcnews @todayshow @NBCNightlyNews @msnbc #Mangkhut pic.twitter.com/uzwD7mmPNk
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisfrayer) September 17, 2018
Authorities said they believed many of those buried in the landslide were gold miners who’d been working illegally at a mine formerly operated by Benguet Corp., a Philippine mining firm.
“Before Ompong came, I asked them to leave,” Palangdan told the Times of the miners, using the local name for Typhoon Mangkhut.
The mayor said the prospectors claimed Benguet Corp. had granted them permission to work at the abandoned mine. The company, however, has refuted that claim.
Typhoon Mangkhut ― this year’s strongest storm to date ― destroyed hundreds of homes in the Philippines and caused more than $170 million worth of agricultural damage, reported Reuters.
It also killed at least four people in China and brought parts of Hong Kong and Macau to a standstill over the weekend.
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