One dead, dozens trapped after giant landfill collapses in Philippines

Key Highlights

• BFP R7 Cebu City FSThe cause of the collapse is unclearSome 300 people from various government agencies and civilian groups have been deployed to the privately-owned landfill.
• Several excavators, ambulances and fire trucks have also been seen on site."All response teams remain fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons," Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival said in a Facebook post on Friday."This is not like other landslides that you can just excavate.
• If you pull from the top, the bottom is soft.
• Let's say there is a person there, when you get the debris, it might get worse," he said, ABS-CBN reported. Cebu City councillor Joel Garganera said the incident may have happened suddenly, but was likely a result of poor waste management practices. Operators had been cutting into the mountain, mining the soil, and then piling garbage to form another mountain of waste, Garganera told local newspaper The Freeman."It's not a sanitary landfill.
• It's already an open dumpsite," he said. Families are waiting for updates on their loved ones trapped in the debris. One Binaliw resident, Belen Antigua, told Rappler that her son had survived the landslide but she was still waiting for her other relatives to be found.