Demolition starts in Pantukan mines

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

DAVAO -- The demolition of houses located inside the identified high risk areas in a mining site in Pantukan town, Compostela Valley, has started.

This came after a landslide tore through a gold-mining site in Sitio Palo Diat, Barangay Napnapan in Pantukan last January 5, which left 36 people dead and 36 more missing, according to the latest advisory of the National Risk Reduction and Management Council.

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A 21-man demolition team accompanied by police personnel arrived at Sitio Diat noontime Wednesday and started demolition of houses as ordered by Pantukan Mayor Celso Sarenas.

The demolition team was headed by a certain Engineer Embino from the Municipal Engineers Office, while the police team was headed by one Inspector Carilli.

Dr. Arnulfo Lantaya, spokesman of the Pantukan Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, said Wednesday there are 180 to 200 houses that will be affected by the demolition. He said each affected family was given P3,000 as financial assistance.

It is estimated that about 2,000 to 4,000 miners will be affected by the demolition. Authorities estimated around 1,000 existing mine tunnels in Pantukan alone.

Compostela Valley Governor Arturo Uy said there are estimated 30,000 families in the entire province dependent on small-scale mining.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo ordered the local officials to immediately close all mine tunnels located inside areas identified as high to very highly dangerous for landslides.

"Houses in these danger areas will be demolished. Residents will be given financial assistance so they could go home to their provinces. The ‘no habitation policy’ will be strictly enforced," Robredo said.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) earlier declared Sitio Diat Uno and Diat Dos as high risk areas. Other identified landslide-prone areas in Barangay Napnapan include puroks Lit-ag, Boringot, Lantawan, Saro, Pulang Lupa, Puring Sayaw, Sapa, Tipga, Niliputan; Barangay Proper, Puroks 7, Caimito, puroks 2 and 5, sitios Binaaba and Saro.

Based on MGB data, Davao Region has 402 landslide-prone areas. Compostela Valley has the most number with a total of 124; Davao Oriental and Davao del Sur, each has 104 landslide-prone areas, while Davao del Norte has 40.

Also agreed by the officials is for all gold processing be transferred from the mine site to a safer place.

Robredo said by their rough estimate, about half of the operation in the mine sites are gold processing thus the transfer could remarkably reduce the number of people in the mine sites.

"What we're looking is a practical and doable solution," Robredo said.

The secretary also vowed to look into the culpability of Sarenas, who was said to have failed to implement the “no habitation policy,” in the latest landslide. (Sun.Star Davao)