The death toll from separate landslides triggered by the combined forces of Typhoon Inday and the enhanced southwest monsoon (habagat) has climbed to 15 as of Friday, July 10, following recent fatalities in Lanao del Sur and an earlier disaster in Sarangani.
A pre-dawn landslide struck Barangay Ngingir in Calanogas, Lanao del Sur, around 2:30 a.m. on Friday, burying several homes after continuous torrential rains caused a hillside to collapse.
According to the Lanao del Sur Police Office, five bodies have been recovered and two individuals were injured, while a joint rescue team of police, firefighters, disaster personnel, and volunteers continues to search for six missing residents.
Responders face severe challenges reaching the site due to compromised roads, forcing them to trek on foot and utilize a mix of manual tools and heavy machinery to dig through the debris.
The tragedy in Lanao del Sur comes on the heels of another fatal landslide in Sitio Fandaw, Barangay Poblacion in Malapatan, Sarangani, where heavy downpours caused a slope failure that destroyed a home shared by two families, killing 10 people.
Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Region 12 Director Rodrigo Sosmeña confirmed that retrieval operations at the Sarangani site have officially wrapped up after all 10 victims were accounted for and pulled from the wreckage.