Typhoon leaves 15 dead, miners missing

Typhoon Goni blew out of the northern Philippines yesterday after leaving at least 15 people dead and several others missing, including a dozen miners whose work camps were buried by a huge mudslide in a mountain village.

Goni was last tracked at sea about 430kms northeast of Basco town in Batanes province.

While approaching the country’s mountainous north, Goni dumped heavy rain for three days then battered already-sodden upland villages with fierce winds, triggering landslides.

In the hard-hit mountain province of Benguet, landslides killed at least 12 people, including four gold miners who were pulled out of a huge mudslide that buried three work camps in far-flung Taneg village in Mankayan town. A dozen miners remain missing and more than 100 policemen and fellow miners dug through the muddy heap yesterday amid fading hope that survivors would be found.

Benguet governor Nestor Fongwan said days of pounding rain and a swollen creek saturated a mountain slope, which cascaded down the gold-mining area at dawn on Saturday.

“They were sleeping when a huge chunk of the mountain came down and buried their work sites,” Fongwan said. “We’re still hoping that we’ll find survivors. We’re still calling it a search and rescue operation.”

Three people died elsewhere in the north after being hit by a landslide

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