KITAOTAO LANDSLIDE - Search and retrieval operation for the missing persons after a landslide struck a hillside village in Kitaotao town, Bukidnon, October 16, 2024. MDRRMO photo MALE CADAVER – Residents of Langogan village, Carmen town, Cotabato found this lifeless male human body slumped near a creek. Photo by Joraij Alimuden
MindanaoToday.com | Two cadavers found along Kabacan river
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Emergency response teams from Kabacan and Carmen towns of Cotabato province reported on Thursday, October 17, they have recovered lifeless female and male human bodies floating along the river at Buluan and Langogan villages.
Rosalie Budoy, head of Kabacan’s Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), in a public advisory posted online, said the female cadaver could be one of the three missing persons from Kitaotao town, Bukidnon.
Budoy said the MDRRMO of Kitaotao had earlier notified them and shared photographs of the missing landslide victims. The same information was relayed to villages along Kabacan River.
In Carmen town, a certain Joraij Alimuden of Langogan village, Carmen town posted online of male human body in state of decomposition that was found by residents slumped on a creek near Kabacan River.
Sitio Minalong, the landslide site is in the vicinity of Kitaotao Creek—a tributary of Muleta River of Bukidnon that flows downstream, crossing several towns of Bukidnon and Cotabato, and eventually merges with Kabacan River—a distance of over a hundred kilometers.
The landslide hit Minalong, a hillside community of Kahusayan village in Kitaotao town about 10 p.m. on Tuesday, October 15, shortly after MDRRMO personnel advised residents to leave amid heavy rains due to localized thunderstorms.
A portion of the Sayre Highway was cleared earlier from a minor landslide early morning that day, Kitaotao MDRRMO head Eleuterio Vicente said in a Facebook post. He later led the search and rescue operations.
Vicente said nine households of 25 individuals managed to move out just in time, but the Cortez family of four were still packing their things when their two-level house was suddenly struck and completely buried by mudslide.
Luckily, 14-year-old Razel Cortez survived, yet he had to be treated for injuries. But efforts of to find the bodies of his father, Ryan, 42; mother, Echel, 33; and sister Elizabeth, 3, failed.
Search and rescue operations by Kitaotao MDRRMO personnel started early morning of Wednesday, October 16. MDRRMO personnel from neighboring Quezon town also came and helped.
Echel’s brother Elson Badara Ubatay, in a Facebook post, confirmed that the corpse retrieved about 5 a.m. on Thursday, October 17, from Kabacan River was his sister’s.
Brother-in-law Ceranes Yama Cortes also shared Ubatay’s confirmation as well as that of Alimuden’s post on his brother, Ryan, and hopes the body of his three-year old niece, Elizabeth would also be recovered. (Uriel Quilinguing/MT)
###
