{"id":35309,"date":"2026-01-09T18:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35309"},"modified":"2026-01-09T18:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:04:15","slug":"at-least-two-dead-as-garbage-landslide-buries-dozens-in-central-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35309","title":{"rendered":"At least two dead as garbage landslide buries dozens in central Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"
Rescue workers searched on Friday for dozens of people buried under a mountain of garbage that collapsed at a landfill in the central Philippines, killing at least two.<\/p>\n

About 50 sanitation workers were buried when the towering pile of refuse toppled onto them at Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“There are signs of life,” Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival told a Friday news briefing, adding that hundreds of rescuers already on site would be joined by “another 500” for search efforts he expected to last through to Sunday.<\/p>\n

Rita Cogay, who operates a compactor at the site, told AFP she had stepped outside to get a drink of water just moments before the building where she had been in was crushed.<\/p>\n

“I thought a helicopter had crashed. But when I turned, it was the garbage and the building coming down. I ran to safety,” the 49-year-old said.<\/p>\n

Cogay said she watched as a co-worker who had been “calling out to me” from the wreckage was pulled free.<\/p>\n

Rescuers were limited in what equipment they could use because any sparks threatened to ignite methane gas emitted by the landfill, Archival said.<\/p>\n

The recovery of the body of a 25-year-old engineer brought the confirmed death toll to two, the mayor said in an early evening post on his Facebook page, adding 36 remained missing.<\/p>\n

At least 12 employees have been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalised.<\/p>\n

Trash mountain<\/p>\n

Jason Morata, a city assistant public information officer, told AFP the trash mountain “must be four storeys high”.<\/p>\n

Aerial photos released by police showed what appeared to be multiple structures crushed under the weight of the garbage.<\/p>\n

Morata said the buildings had housed “company offices, HR, admin, maintenance staff” for a private firm that ran the site.<\/p>\n

“We’re considering several factors. If you remember, Cebu was struck by two typhoons in the latter part of 2025… and also an earthquake,” he said.<\/p>\n

Morata added that information was emerging in a trickle because there was “no signal” at the dump site.<\/p>\n

The landfill “processes 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste daily”, according to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions.<\/p>\n

Calls to the company went unanswered on Friday.<\/p>\n

“We don’t know what caused the collapse. It wasn’t raining at all,” said Marge Parcotello, a civilian staff member of the police department in Consolacion, a town that shares a common boundary with the dump site.<\/p>\n

“Many of the victims are from Consolacion,” she said.<\/p>\n

More than 200 people were killed in July 2000 when an avalanche of garbage consumed a Manila shanty town populated by several thousand scavengers.<\/p>\n

That tragedy, the worst of its kind in Philippine history, prompted public outrage over open landfills. Legislation aimed at better regulation of waste management was passed months later.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rescue workers searched on Friday for dozens of people buried under a mountain of garbage that collapsed at a landfill in the central Philippines, killing at least two. About 50 sanitation workers were buried when the towering pile of refuse toppled onto them at Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City, on Thursday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}