17 September 2018
Typhoon Mangkhut: Miners and families buried by landslide
By BBC
Rescuers in the Philippines are digging through mud to retrieve bodies buried by a landslide that hit as Typhoon Mangkhut battered the country.
At least 32 people in the mining town of Itogon, in Benguet province, were crushed in a single shelter.
Teams are raking through the rubble with their bare hands, passing blocks of concrete and pieces of wood down a 50ft line to clear the area.
Typhoon Mangkhut is now weakening over southern China.
Four people were killed in the province of Guangdong - three by falling trees.
What happened in the Philippines?
The storm ploughed across the main Philippine island of Luzon over the weekend. More than 60 people have been killed, mostly in landslides triggered by heavy rains, with the majority in Benguet province.
A group of artisanal goldminers in the village of Ucab, which lies in a valley in Itogon municipality, had huddled with their families in a two-storey shelter, Conrad Navidad of the International Organization for Migration told the BBC. The building was crushed, and 29 people remain missing.
"It was used as a worship area for the church group of the mine workers and their families," said Mr Navidad, who was at the scene earlier on Monday. "Before the typhoon hit, their pastor invited them to take refuge in that bunkhouse - and then the disaster happened and they were buried by the landslide.
"They are not hoping for survivors anymore - just for the retrieval of the bodies buried."
The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said mining operators had been told to leave, but that a mine near the shelter had been operating illegally.
The Philippine government on Monday said it was deploying security forces to put a stop to illegal small-scale mining in the vast Cordillera mountain region, a practice which is credited with increasing the likelihood of landslides in communities like Itogon
The BBC's Howard Johnson, who has been covering the storm, described a trail of destruction along the northern coast of Luzon, with forests ripped to shreds and electricity poles felled.
There is also concern over the economic cost of the typhoon, which has caused extensive damage to farmland in Cagayan, a key agricultural province.
Francis Tolentino, a political adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte, told the BBC he estimated only a fifth of produce there had been harvested in advance - threatening staples like rice and corn.
