Landslides force Diwalwal residents to evacuate

DAVAO CITY – Hundreds of residents, mostly small-scale miners, at the gold-rush site on Mt. Diwalwal in Monkayo, Compostela Valley have to be evacuated to safer grounds after a series of landslides struck the area in the past two days.

Authorities had to force the villagers to evacuate due to the continuous heavy downpour in the mining site.

Senior Superintendent Ronald de la Rosa, Compostela Valley police director, said the first landslide struck at around 3 a.m. last Friday in Purok 10, Patindol district, destroying some properties, including the house of one Antonio Rosales.

Two hours later, another landslide occurred in Purok 14, Buenas district.

De la Rosa said at least 80 fa­milies in Purok 1-A had to be eva­c­uated immediately after big cracks were found on the floor of two school buildings there.

“We have to evacuate the residents as part of our precautionary measures since cracks were already showing in certain portions of the mining site,” he said.

Close to 40,000 small-scale miners have been eking out a living on Mt. Diwalwal in spite of the danger of landslides and floods at the onset of heavy rains.

Landslides have claimed thousands of lives since mining operations started on Mt. Diwalwal in the early 1980s.