7 dead, 31 injured in Davao de Oro landslide

At least seven people were killed and 31 injured when a rain-induced landslide hit a gold-mining village in a mountainous region of the southern Philippines, officials said Wednesday.

The landslide Tuesday night struck Masara in Davao de Oro province on Mindanao island, provincial disaster official Edward Macapili told Agence France-Presse (AFP), destroying houses and engulfing two buses used to transport mine workers.

Rescuers were digging through mud to reach at least 20 people trapped inside the buses, Macapili said.

At least 28 people were on board the buses when the landslide hit, but eight managed to escape unhurt through the windows before the mud engulfed them, he said.

The buses had been outside a gold mine operated by the Philippine company Apex Mining in Masara village, where buses drop off and pick up workers.

The six fatalities were identified as workers from Apex Mining.

The Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) in Davao reported that the six casualties were recovered from the landslide site during search and rescue operations by military and local government first responders.

Initial reports on the incident said 46 individuals remained missing. It was not immediately clear if that figure included the 20 trapped on the buses.

«The rescue and retrieval operations are still progressing together with other agencies of government and provincial rescue teams,» the MDRRMO said.

Eastern Mindanao Command spokesman Col. Rosa Ma Cristina Rosete-Manuel said that three of the survivors were in critical condition, requiring an immediate evacuation by air.

At least 758 families or 600 individuals from neighboring communities of Maco town have been evacuated to safer locations.

There was no access to digital communication signals in the area, prompting the military to deploy analog radio equipment.

Aerial video showed a deep, brown gouge down the side of a forested mountain that reached the village below, where a number of houses had been destroyed.

The land above the landslide appears to have been cleared for crops.

Rescue teams from across the region have been deployed to help search the large area under mud, Macapili said.

«We have equipment,