10 people missing in Zamboanga del Sur mudslides
text HADER GLANG
At least 10 people were missing when mudflows occurred late Saturday in Zamboanga del Sur province in the southern Philippines, officials said on Sunday.

The mudslides buried two houses in sitio Balabag, barangay (village) Depore, Bayog town, near the Toronto Ventures Incorporated, Maj. Gamal Hayudini, information chief of the Southern Command, told the Zamboanga Southwall.

"More or less 10 persons are missing and believed buried by mudflows," Hayudini said.

Rescue operations by troops from the Army’s 5th Infantry Battalion of the 102nd Brigade and the police are ongoing for any survivors.

Disaster officials are still investigating the cause of the natural disaster.

Last Friday, a massive landslide rumbled down a mountainside on Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town in southern Leyte in the central Philippines, burying hundreds of houses and a school packed with elementary students.

Red Cross officials estimated 200 people were dead and 1,800 others missing. The landslide, which followed two weeks of heavy rains, was believed to have killed nearly every man, woman and child in the farming village of Guinsaugon, which was covered with mud up to 30 feet deep.

In November 1991, about 6,000 people were killed on Leyte in floods and landslides triggered by a tropical storm. Another 133 people died in floods and mudslides there in December 2003. (ZS)