Rescue workers searched on Friday for dozens of people buried under a mountain of garbage that collapsed at a landfill in the central Philippines, killing at least two.<\/p>\n
About 50 sanitation workers were buried when the towering pile of refuse toppled onto them at Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City, on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“There are signs of life,” Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival told a Friday news briefing, adding that hundreds of rescuers already on site would be joined by “another 500” for search efforts he expected to last through to Sunday.<\/p>\n
Rita Cogay, who operates a compactor at the site, told AFP she had stepped outside to get a drink of water just moments before the building where she had been in was crushed.<\/p>\n
“I thought a helicopter had crashed. But when I turned, it was the garbage and the building coming down. I ran to safety,” the 49-year-old said.<\/p>\n
Cogay said she watched as a co-worker who had been “calling out to me” from the wreckage was pulled free.<\/p>\n
Rescuers were limited in what equipment they could use because any sparks threatened to ignite methane gas emitted by the landfill, Archival said.<\/p>\n
The recovery of the body of a 25-year-old engineer brought the confirmed death toll to two, the mayor said in an early evening post on his Facebook page, adding 36 remained missing.<\/p>\n
At least 12 employees have been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalised.<\/p>\n
Trash mountain<\/p>\n
Jason Morata, a city assistant public information officer, told AFP the trash mountain “must be four storeys high”.<\/p>\n
Aerial photos released by police showed what appeared to be multiple structures crushed under the weight of the garbage.<\/p>\n
Morata said the buildings had housed “company offices, HR, admin, maintenance staff” for a private firm that ran the site.<\/p>\n
“We’re considering several factors. If you remember, Cebu was struck by two typhoons in the latter part of 2025… and also an earthquake,” he said.<\/p>\n
Morata added that information was emerging in a trickle because there was “no signal” at the dump site.<\/p>\n
The landfill “processes 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste daily”, according to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions.<\/p>\n
Calls to the company went unanswered on Friday.<\/p>\n
“We don’t know what caused the collapse. It wasn’t raining at all,” said Marge Parcotello, a civilian staff member of the police department in Consolacion, a town that shares a common boundary with the dump site.<\/p>\n
“Many of the victims are from Consolacion,” she said.<\/p>\n
More than 200 people were killed in July 2000 when an avalanche of garbage consumed a Manila shanty town populated by several thousand scavengers.<\/p>\n
That tragedy, the worst of its kind in Philippine history, prompted public outrage over open landfills. Legislation aimed at better regulation of waste management was passed months later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"