Search teams recover 1 of 4 children buried in Zambo landslide

ZAMBOANGA City, Philippines - Search and retrieval teams have dug up one of the four minors buried by a landslide in an uphill village in Kabasalan town, Zamboanga Sibugay last week, the police said Monday.

Chief Inspector Ariel Huesca, spokesman of Police Regional Office 9 (PRO), said the joint police and local government rescue team recovered the body of 12-year-old Fatima Orong Maghanoy from the rubble at Purok 4, Barangay Sayat at around about 4 p.m. Sunday.

Huesca said the search for the three more missing children is ongoing. The other children burried by the landlisnde are Maghanoy’s 9-year-old brother Eugene, 9; and cousins, Sherlyn Mae Lugatiman Maghanoy, 7, and her Eziquel Meziah, 3.

The four children were taking refuge from an abandoned house at the foot of a slope when they rain-triggered landslide buried them alive last May 28.

Huesca said the search and retrieval for the children is being conducted "manually" as the area, eight kilometers from the town proper, is not accessible to heavy equipment.

The remains of Maghanoy were turned over to her parents and assisted by the local government for proper burial.

Meanwhile, a farmer was missing and feared dead after he was swept by rampaging flash flood in Tambulig town, Zamboanga del Sur Sunday afternoon.

Police said Calib Boroy, 57, was crossing a river when he was swept by a flash flood that was triggered by heavy rains at about 3p.m in Barangay River.