More dead feared in Manila garbage slide<\/p>\n
MANILA (Reuters): Philippine officials said on Tuesday 91
\nbodies had been recovered and about 100 others were missing
\nfeared dead in the collapse of a mountain of garbage on a Manila
\nshantytown.<\/p>\n
"It's a recovery operation, not a search and rescue
\noperation," Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told Reuters some
\n36 hours after an avalanche of rain-drenched garbage thundered
\ndown on the squatters colony.<\/p>\n
He said local officials at the Promised Land shantytown had no
\nfirm count on how many were still buried under a hectare-wide
\npile of rubbish but he believed there were about 100.<\/p>\n
The Red Cross estimated 70 were missing but the local civil
\ndefense office put the number at several hundred.<\/p>\n
Rescue officer Lt. Fausto Tapiador gave a much higher
\nestimate, saying he believed the bodies so far retrieved were
\n"only about five percent" of the total missing. "Yes," Mercado
\nsaid when asked if he believed if all those buried were dead.<\/p>\n
Rescue teams were digging at 17 sites but in some areas had
\nnot been able to penetrate beyond the roofs of the collapsed
\nshanties, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n
Among the latest victims found were Maria Balbuena and her
\nfive-year-old son, Allan, whose bodies were lifted by a
\nmechanical digger from a smoldering heap of garbage that was once
\ntheir home.<\/p>\n
A fire broke out in the dump after Monday's collapse as a live
\nelectric cable snapped and ignited trash and trapped methane gas.
\nMaria was clutching her son to her breast with both arms as
\nthough trying to shield him from harm.<\/p>\n
"I had been looking for them," wept Balbuena's husband as he
\nidentified the bodies of his wife and son. "Last night I prayed I
\nwill find them, but now they are gone."<\/p>\n
Relief officer Adela Pamat told Reuters: "Up to yesterday
\nafternoon, we could still hear voices from below calling for
\nhelp, but last night we could no longer hear them. "Even the
\nrelatives say they think all of them are dead. I think they are
\nall dead, too."<\/p>\n
An army captain said: "All we could find are dead people."
\nAbout 100 people were also injured when a one-hectare section of
\nthe 10-hectare garbage dump in the Manila suburb of Quezon City
\ncrumbled after being pounded for days by typhoon Kai-Tak.<\/p>\n
More than 100 squatter huts at the base of the massive dump,
\nwhich towers over the shantytown like a volcano, were crushed in
\nthe avalanche of rubbish and mud.<\/p>\n
Mercado said it might take four days to recover the bodies of
\nthe missing but rescue teams needed smaller dredging equipment to
\nprevent the rubble from giving way and burying victims even
\ndeeper.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday, the smell of rubbish was giving way to the stench
\nof rotting bodies coming from the heap.<\/p>\n
Grief-stricken relatives braved the smell and clustered around
\ncrushed shanties, desperately hoping someone might still be found
\nalive.<\/p>\n
The dumpsite -- ironically called Lupang Pangako (Promised
\nLand) -- is a bleak underworld of 80,000 slum-dwellers, most of
\nwhom trek up the small mountain of garbage daily to forage for
\nused plastic containers, picture frames, broken toys and broken
\nappliances to sell to junk shops.<\/p>\n
For 20 years, it has stood as a symbol of the massive poverty
\ngripping this Roman Catholic nation of 75 million. Each scavenger
\nearns about 200 pesos (US$4.50) a day.<\/p>\n
President Joseph Estrada said the government planned to close
\nthe dump. "We are working on a housing project for these people
\n(the squatters) so that they would have a decent place to live
\nin," he said in a radio interview.<\/p>\n
As soldiers rummaged through the rubble, one elderly woman who
\nhad lost her daughter in the disaster and was looking for other
\nmissing relatives, broke down and wept.<\/p>\n
"They have found my daughter's body and it was badly burned.
\nThey also found the body of her daughter but its head was gone,"
\nConchita Ramos wailed.<\/p>\n
"We are not blaming anyone for this but we want to have their
\nbodies back. We are calling on President Erap (Estrada): 'Please,
\nhave the bodies dug up. Many of them are still buried there.
\nThere are still thousands of them buried there.'"<\/p>",
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