Landslides kill 15 orphans

TWO landslides that hit a Malaysian orphanage killed 15 boys and one adult but nine people survived, police said as a 15-hour rescue mission ended.

District police chief Abdul Rashid Wahab said the bodies of 15 boys, aged eight to 18, and a 34-year-old caretaker had been recovered. Six boys and three wardens who were critically injured in the landslides have been taken to hospital.

Medical officers had to amputate the leg of one of the boys at the site.

Abdul Rashid said the last rescued victim, a nine-year-old boy, was pulled out nearly eight hours after tons of earth crashed through the orphanage for ethnic Malay Muslim boys.