'Toll from Philippine landslide climbs to 20'

Rescuers recovered four bodies from a village buried by a landslide in the southern Philippines, raising the death toll to 20.

Rescuers recovered four bodies on Tuesday from a village buried by a landslide in the southern Philippines, raising the death toll to 20, an official said.

HT Image

Nineteen people remain missing, said Voltaire Rimando, mayor of Maco town in southern Mindanao island, where two landslides over the weekend buried 28 homes in a mining village.

He appealed for more donations to the families of those killed and the thousands of people forced to leave the village, which lies on the bottom slopes of a mining concession.

The area had been classified as highly susceptible to landslides last year when experts detected soil saturation, officials said.

Ten people died in a rain-triggered landslide in the same area last year.

In February 2006, a landslide buried the entire village of Guinsaugon in the central island of Leyte, killing more than 1,000 people.