An estimated 50 people are feared missing after another landfill collapsed at two o’clock Friday afternoon, this time in Rodriguez, Rizal.
Initial reports said 100 people are affected, about half of whom remain unaccounted as of Sunday.
University of the Philippines student newspaper Philippine Collegian broke the news and reported that no coordinated rescue operation are being conducted by the local government of Rodriguez, Rizal province, adjacent to Metro Manila.
The publication said the landfill operator International Solid Waste Integrated Management Specialist Inc. (ISWIMS) is preventing journalists and residents from seeking information about the incident.
Networks ABS-CBN and GMA Network issued separate reports on Sunday afternoon confirming the incident but with only four reported casualties so far.
Three backhoe vehicles triggered the collapse, burying the victims, the reports said.
Local government authorities have yet to issue a statement on the reported incident, Sunday being a weekend holiday.
Prior to Saturday’s incident, the community of scavengers beside the landfill has been threatened with demolition, potentially making 1,000 families homeless, the Collegian added.
Four people died in the last trash slide in Rodriguez in April 2013. Trash slides in the said landfill also happened in 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2021, Kodao sources said.
Philippine landfills are operated by private companies such as ISWIMS who employ workers to dump and sift mountains of garbage.
Scavengers are usually present in the landfills to gather plastics and paper thrash they sell to junk shops.
Rodriguez’s once lush mountains and valleys have been turned into trash landfills for most of Metro Manila’s cities, replacing Payatas Landfill in nearby Quezon City that permanently closed in 2017.
The Rodriguez trash slide may prove deadlier than the Binaliw landfill tragedy in Cebu City last January 8 that killed 36 workers.
READ: Labor groups demand accountability for Cebu garbage slide
The Cebu tragedy was blamed on unsafe practices by the private contractor, such as cutting into accumulated waste, reshaping the garbage pile over time, and extracting soil before stacking waste anew, resulting in unstable mounds.
Residents have reported foul odors, untreated wastewater, and possible water contamination affecting Barangay Binaliw and nearby Panoypoy village in Consolacion town.
On July 10, 2000, the Payatas Landfill in Quezon City collapsed, killing at least 218 people. About 300 people remain missing. Some accounts say that 700 to about 1,000 were the actual casualties. The victims were scavengers who also lived on the mountains of Metro Manila’s garbage. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
