The death toll in the catastrophic landslide that hit the town of Maco, Davao de Oro climbed to 98 on Sunday as disaster workers continued retrieving cadavers and body parts.

According to Leah Añora of Maco’s response cluster, of the fatalities logged, 88 were complete bodies, while 10 only had 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, [as to] who that personality is,” she added.

Of the nine missing, four are from the community of Maco, four from Maria-Socio General Services Inc., and one from Apex Mining.

Meanwhile, response cluster co-lead Joel Penido said that the total number of families affected by the landslide now stands at 1,503, comprising 5,378 individuals, now staying at evacuation centers.

Incident commander, Engr. Ariel Capoy, on the other hand, said that his team cannot say exactly when they would demobilize as the search and retrieval operations are still going on.

“For the termination of the operation, we still cannot confirm because we are hoping to retrieve more,” he said. “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 before 8 p.m. last 6 February at a gold mining site in Zone 1, Barangay Masara, burying houses, a barangay hall, and vehicles carrying passengers.

Last Wednesday, disaster officials shifted to doing search and retrieval operations, which meant they had little hope of finding more survivors, weeks into the disaster.

Meanwhile, Appa, the hero dog, which helped locate a three-year-old girl alive after being buried for nearly 60 hours, was ordered sent home to rest after showing signs of exhaustion.

Coast Guard Southeastern Mindanao public information officer, Commander Angela Tobias, earlier said that their veterinary service had recommended that the nine-year-old dog be relieved from duty.