THREE weeks after the tragic Masara landslide devastated the village in Barangay Masara, Maco, Davao de Oro, the search and retrieval operation has come to a permanent halt, leaving eight individuals buried beneath the debris.
The termination order, in accordance with Executive Order (EO) No. 17, was issued by Maco's municipal mayor, Arthur Carlos Voltaire Rimando, on Thursday, February 22, this year.
The decision followed a thorough assessment, evaluation, and recommendations from the Incident Management Team (IMT).
The transition from search and rescue to retrieval operations began on February 14, based on the recommendation of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MDRRMO) of Maco and other humanitarian and disaster clusters, including the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC) in the province.
According to the initial tally of the local government unit of Maco (LGU-Maco), the landslide on February 6 at Zone 1 of Barangay Masara claimed 93 lives.
As per the Management of the Dead Missing Unit of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (MDM-DILG), out of the 93 confirmed dead, 79 have been identified and returned to their families, eight remain missing, and 14 are still unidentified and interred at the Maco Public Cemetery.
Masara, one of Maco's most populated areas, houses thousands of families, with the Apex mining firm producing gold and silver within its jurisdiction.
Despite the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) declaring Masara a "no-build zone" after the 2008 landslide, former Davao de Oro Gov. Arturo Uy clarified that many of the fatalities were transient workers of the mining firm.
He added that many residents had already relocated to Barangay Kinuban within the same municipality.
“Many of them will just go to Masara to work and return to Kinuban and other areas at night. They have already settled in Kinuban. It’s not true that the residents resettled in Masara,” he said.
The LGU-Maco is currently in discussions with various government agencies to implement rehabilitation and determine the geographic setting of relocation sites. DEF
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