(WATCH: The video footage shows where the victims were recovered and buried with limestone. Video by MyTV)
The rain on Monday night that provided relief to the parched land in Cebu caused a limestone quarry area to cave in and claimed the lives of two boys and injured their mother in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City yesterday afternoon.
Ian Valor Lumapas, 11, and his brother Jacob, who was going to turn four years old on Friday, Feb. 22, perished after a sloping portion of their backyard, where their parents had been engaged in small-scale mining of anapog (limestone), collapsed and buried them alive.
Their mother, Mitos Basak, 31, is confined but in stable condition at the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) on B. Rodriguez Street, Cebu City.
Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, who heads the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CCDRRMC), said it rained in Sitio Sun-ok, Barangay Lahug on Monday night, which might have softened the hillside where Basak, and her common law husband Ian Lumapas, also in his 30s, had been extracting anapog for a living.
A thunderstorm warning was issued by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophyiscal and Astronomical Services Administration (Pag-asa) at 10 p.m.
Monday for Cebu City and nearby areas. The weather bureau was able to record light rains in Cebu City.
But Pagasa Mactan weather specialist Alice Canasa told Cebu Daily News that the rain experienced on Monday night was “unrecordable.”
“The cause of the rains was due to local convective clouds or localized thunderstorm,” she said.
Canasa said that rain could occur anytime and anywhere for the same reason. No thunderstorm warning was raised over Cebu yesterday.
Ian, Mitos and their seven children live in a shanty built on an elevated portion of Sitio Sun-ok, close to where they dug the anapog that they sold for P35 a sack.
At about 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Mitos, Ian and their two boys decided to take shelter from the sweltering heat in the cave-like site where they had been extracting the limestone.
But the hillside collapsed, burying the two boys in soil while Mitos, who was seated nearby, was buried from her waist down. Ian survived since he was seated separately from his wife and two sons. He only sustained bruises on his face.
Jacob was already dead when brought to VSMMC at past 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
Ian Valor died about an hour later at the Perpetual Succour Hospital, said Tumulak.
Rex Noel (green shirt) and Carmelito Siclot (white) discuss the incident that killed two boys in Sitio Sun-ok, Barangay Lahug. (CDN PHOTO / LITO TECSON)
IAN VALOR’S HEROISM
According to rescuers, the body of Ian Valor was first recovered from the piles of limestone and dirt. He was found hugging his young brother. Both were unconscious.
“Para nako heroic to iyang gibuhat. Among nakawtan si Ian Valor nga gahalug iyang manghod para unta protektahan pero murag ulahi na gyud to kay dugay mi nakasugod ug kawot (For me, it was a heroic deed for a brother. We found Ian Valor hugging his younger sibling as if to protect him. But it took us a while to dig them up, so we were too late),” said Rex Noel, a neighbor and one of those involved in the effort to rescue the buried children.
For the first 20 minutes after the slide, Mitos and Ian were busy getting themselves out of the dirt, and did not realize that their two children were buried underneath the soil.After Ian freed Mitos, Noel said it took sometime before they started digging for the two boys since the couple initially searched for the kids from among their neighbors, thinking they had been rescued.
Despite the cuts and wounds the couple suffered from the landslide, they joined the four men – Noel, Carmelito Siclot, Nelson Wasawas and Nelson Amparo- who volunteered to rescue and found the two kids already unconscious, inches underneath the soil.
Neighbors said they heard a thunderous sound at past 1 p.m. while they were watching a noontime show.
Aigrette Key Wasawas, a neighbor who lived across the house, said she was shocked to see that portions of the backyard of Ian and Mitos had caved in.
Noel narrated that he blew air into the mouth of Ian Valor while another neighbor, American national George Demetz, who knew cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), pumped the chest of the boy.
“Demetz would keep on reminding me to keep the air coming to the victim for him to survive before he was lifted and brought to the hospital on board a motorcycle,” said Noel.Siclot, one of the rescuers.
He said they had no time to wait for an ambulance so they decided to to rush the two unconscious boys to hospitals on board separate motorcycles.
The area occupied by Ian, Mitos and their children could only be accessed via motorcycle.
THE OTHER CHILDREN
Four ther Lumapas children were unharmed as they were inside the house when the incident happened while the oldest was with their grandmother at her residence in Barangay Luz at the time of the incident.
Shaan Bryan, 12, the eldest of the seven siblings, said he rushed home as soon as he learned of the incident. He was checking the room located at the back portion of their shanty when Cebu Daily News met him around 4 p.m. yesterday. A portion of their house was also damaged by the landslide.
A Grade 6 student of Lahug Elementary School, Shaan Bryan was left to take care of his younger siblings including the month-old baby Rohana, who was sleeping in a hammock. The other children – Shan David, 8, Krista, 6, and Myan, 3, were strolling along the side of the house.
Nita Basak, the children’s grandmother, said her daughter Mitos and Ian had been engaged in mining anapog since 2010, after Ian lost his job as a utility worker in a downtown Cebu City establishment.
She said she had warned them about the danger of llimestone extraction but her warning went unheeded.
(The area was cordoned after the incident. Video by CDN Correspondent Apple Mae Taas)
CORDONED
CCDRRMC personnel have, meanwhile, cordoned off the landslide area amid the risk of more cave ins, said Tumulak.
“People should not go near it because there is still a possibility that it will continue to collapse. There are small (man-made) caves (due to limestone extraction) there,” said Tumulak, who was at VSMMC last night to visit Mitos.
Tumulak said Ian and Mitos were extracting limestone from a privately-owned lot and had been repeatedly reprimanded by the landowner but they ignored the scolding as they had no other means of livelihood.
According to Tumulak, the city government would shoulder all hospital expenses of Mitos and would extend burial assistance and provide coffins for the two boys.