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
MindanaoToday.com | Woman’s cadaver found floating at Kabacan river
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A emergency response team from Kabacan town of Cotabato province reported on Thursday, October 17, it has recovered a lifeless female human body floating along the river at Buluan village.
Rosalie Budoy, head of Kabacan’s Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), in a public advisory posted online, said the 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.
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.
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 the same and reposted the message, and expressed hopes that the bodies of his younger brother, Ryan, and niece, Elizabeth would also be recovered. (Uriel Quilinguing/MT)
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