THERE is still hope.
This was how Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office Chief Baltazar Tribunalo described their search and rescue operation in Sitio Sindulan, Barangay Tina-an, City of Naga yesterday, nearly three days after a massive landslide struck the area.
He said that a person trapped in rubble can survive for many days as long as he has air to breathe.
“There is no presence of gas, so there’s a big possibility there are survivors. If we find dead bodies, they probably suffocated. It all depends on a person’s coping mechanism. We’re very optimistic here,” he said in Cebuano. That is why they have not shifted to a retrieval operation, he said.
“Some of the buried houses are made of strong materials,” he said.
Tribunalo said they are pursuing other search options, including the tunneling approach.
Argao Mayor Stanley Caminero, who operates a mining firm, visited the incident command post yesterday to brief responders.
“We will create access to the potential areas where there might be houses without disturbing the soil on top, otherwise the structure might collapse. In mining, the surface must not be disturbed,” the mayor said in Cebuano.
Caminero said the use of equipment might make or break a rescue operation since the vibration will affect stability.
He said the responders, though, have been extra careful with their equipment.
“In mining tragedies, we know that if there’s still breathing space, they can actually live for days or weeks. In Chile, those who were trapped lived for a month before they were rescued,” he said.
(In the case of the trapped miners in Chile, they had access to two to three days worth of food, which they stretched out to a little more than two weeks. After which they were discovered and received food until they were finally rescued.)
Caminero, like Tribunalo, was hopeful to find survivors.
Aside from responders, engineers from the Department of Engineering and Public Works, and mining and quarrying experts have been deployed to the area to evaluate the soil movement.
Tribunalo said the rain continued to be a challenge, but they made sure it didn’t affect their operation.
Yesterday, responders didn’t start their search until around noon. They had to stop because of the rain but they resumed 30 minutes after the downpour.
Tribunalo said they would continue to look for survivors at night. Their search covers three sitios with an area of 80.4 hectares.
As of 5 p.m. yesterday, 35 were dead, 44 remained missing, while 15 survivors had been pulled out, based on records from the Department of Social Welfare and Development 7.
Jonalyn Siton was one of the lucky survivors.
She used a rock to bang on an LPG tank that led rescuers to her and her mother Jocelyn, who were trapped under the wall of their kitchen when the landslide covered their house.
It was Jonalyn and her mother who were seen on video that had gone viral on social media where the daughter’s lower body was pinned by a crouching Jocelyn with the kitchen wall lying on top of the latter.
“Lord, help us. I know we have sinned, but please give us the strength to survive,” prayed Jonalyn in Cebuano, while they waited for rescue.
When she heard her father’s frantic calls, she immediately groped for a rock, which she banged on the tank.
She and her mother were dug out by rescuers and neighbors, but her sisters Crystal Jean, 14, and Althea, four, were found dead. Her other younger sister, Niña Rose, remains missing. Niña Rose had slept in their aunt’s house, which is also in the sitio.
Another sister Elawizah, 12, escaped because she had gone to the store to buy something.
Jonalyn said she felt the ground shake before 6 a.m. last Thursday. She thought a helicopter had landed on top of the hill. But when she looked outside, water and boulders were already headed for their house.
She grabbed Althea with Crystal in tow. Her mother, Jonalyn, rushed out to embrace her when their kitchen wall hit them and pinned them under the sink.
Althea’s lifeless body was found first around 9 a.m. last Thursday. Jonalyn was rescued an hour later. Her mother, Jocelyn, was found at 11 a.m.
Jocelyn died around 3 a.m. last Friday.
Jonalyn said her mother’s words comforted her while they were buried. “Ayaw ka rattle. Salig sa Ginoo (Don’t panic. Trust in God),” her mother had told her.
Jocelyn and her daughters Crystal and Althea’s wake is at the badminton gym in Barangay Poblacion, City of Naga.