The number of people who have died in Maco, Davao de Oro due to a devastating landslide on 6 February has risen to 98, as authorities continue to recover more bodies and remains.
According to Leah Añora of the Maco’s management of the dead and the missing cluster, of the bodies recovered, eighty-eight were complete bodies and 10 were body parts.
“We have 79 identified bodies, and we still have 18 unidentified retrieved bodies, which include complete bodies and body parts,” she said in a press briefing on Saturday.
"We still have nine missing. But we still have one, out of the nine that we have yet to verify until now who that personality is," she added, noting that four of this number are from the community, four from Maria-Socio General Services Inc., and one from Apex Mining.
Meanwhile, Response Cluster Alternative Head Joel Penido said that the total number of families affected is now 1,503, which is a total of 5,378 individuals, who are now sheltering in evacuation centers.
Incident Commander Engineer Ariel Capoy, on the other hand, said that his team cannot say exactly when they will demobilize but said that during their operational period, his team will be conducting a tactical meeting to identify possible strategies they could implement to enhance their search and retrieval operations.
"For the termination of the operation, we still cannot confirm because we are hoping to rescue more,” he said.
He added: "If the search and retrieval continues, we will be recommending…because there are teams there that have been there for a few days, we can replace them so they can go [home] to their families.”
The rain-induced landslide hit on 6 February at 7:40 p.m. at a gold mining site in Zone 1, Bgy. Masara, burying nearby houses, a barangay hall, and vehicles carrying passengers.
On Wednesday, the disaster officials shifted to doing search and retrieval operations from search rescue and retrieval, or SRR, operations to fast-track the rescue mission on ground zero.
The switch of operations also ended the search and rescue mission for Appa, the hero dog who located a three-year-old female child who was miraculously alive after being buried in rubble for nearly 60 hours.
Coast Guard District Southeastern Mindanao Public Information Officer Commander Angela Tobias earlier said that the PCG Veterinary Service had advised the nine-year-old dog to be sent home and rest since it showed signs of exhaustion.
