71 bodies found after Davao de Oro landslide

MANILA, Philippines — A total of 71 bodies were found following the landslide in Davao de Oro’s mining village, the local government said on Tuesday.

Leah Añora, a unit member of Maco town’s “Management of the Dead and the Missing,” said that 67 of them are complete bodies while four of them are only body parts.

“As of eight in the morning today, we have a total of 71 retrieved bodies and body parts,” Añora said during a press conference.

“So we have complete bodies, a total of 67. [As for] the body parts, we have four,” she said.

Añora added that 47 people remain missing.

Several buses carrying 86 workers of Apex Mines were buried in a landslide around 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday (Feb. 6) at Barangay Masara in Maco town, according to the Eastern Mindanao Command.

Some 300 families or 2,000 individuals were also affected by the landslide, according to the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).

The OCD said multiple weather disturbances like the shear line, northeast monsoon, and the trough of a low-pressure area hit the Davao region this month, which caused widespread flooding and landslide incidents in the region.

READ: Landslide in Davao de Oro mining village affects 300 families