29 Under the rubbish…dwindling hopes of finding survivors of the Philippines disaster
Hopes of finding survivors fade after a huge mountain of Waste is in the middle of The Philippines, officials confirmed, while Rescue workers search through tons of rubble.
The recovery of a body on Sunday brought the confirmed death toll to seven, with at least 29 people still missing, as the crucial 72 hours since the landslide hit Cebu City ended.
About 50 sanitation workers were buried Thursday when a mountain of waste collapsed twenty stories high at the Benalio landfill, a private waste facility for the city with a population of Nearly one million people.
The mountain of waste collapsed
Local fire official Wendell Villanueva told AFP on Sunday "Yesterday we detected two signs of life through our specialized radar. There was a heartbeat 30 meters below the rubble, but there are no reports of that now"
It is unlikely that there will be survivors after three days of tons of rubble and waste collapsing on top of them, he said.
So far, 12 workers have been pulled alive from under the rubble and taken to hospital.
A rescue team official said Saturday that emergency workers faced an additional collapse risk due to the still-moving mountain of rubbish, forcing them to suspend their efforts, and Villanueva added that the rain had increased this danger.
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