Asia
Philippines: Girl and baby rescued after landslide
Volunteers help residents get to safety after a landslide on Wednesday. photo
© Uncredited/PHILIPPINE RED CROSS/AP/dpa
It seems like a small miracle in disguise: rescuers pulled a three-year-old girl and a two-month-old baby alive from the rubble more than two days after the landslide in the Philippines.
A few days after a landslide in the south of the Philippines with many dead, a three-year-old girl and a two-month-old baby have been rescued alive, according to authorities. Rescuers dug with their hands through the rubble in the town of Maco on the island of Mindanao and found the two, said Edward Macapili, a disaster officer for Davao de Oro province. “It is a great miracle that they were rescued after more than 48 hours.” Nobody expected to find any survivors anymore.
So far, rescue workers have recovered 15 bodies after the landslide that buried an unknown number of houses as well as two buses filled with miners and a minibus near a gold mine in Maco on Tuesday evening. This was preceded by heavy monsoon rains that have been hitting the island of Mindanao since the end of January.
31 other people were injured by the landslide. According to local authorities, more than 100 people were still missing. That number was based on reports from residents looking for family members and relatives, Macapil said.