Fear, isolation test resolve of residents in Albay town

NOTE: This story was first published by CoverStory.ph on October 25, 2024. When we went to Burabod village in Libon town, ABS-CBN and Bicoldotph reporter Vince Villar and I wanted to make our way to the isolated parts of the town. Thankfully, we saw the village captain, Irwin Perez, who was kind enough to let us tag along as he made his rounds to check the landslide area and his constituents at the evacuation center. Due to the earth blocking two parts of the road going to their safety center, evacuees in Sitio Quigasang of Burabod haven’t really received any aid from the local government, which, to be fair, was doing everything that it can to reach other isolated areas. It was just too unsafe for responders to reach the area. When we arrived at the evacuation center, the residents had just slaughtered a pig and shared it equally amongst the families. Many residents in Burabod own piggeries and chicken hatcheries, some of which were covered by the landslide. Here is the story that I wrote for CoverStory.ph.

LIBON, Albay—Delia Sario Elcano, 68, plodded through mud and past fallen power lines, barbed wires, slippery stones, and streams that were not there before. She had to take an unfamiliar path in temporarily abandoned residential lots because the usual route was covered with soil and rubble from a landslide.

It was noon of Oct. 24 in Burabod village, the site of the landslide that buried at least 20 homes the previous day. “Diyos ko, Amang Diyos (My God, Father God)!” Elcano kept saying, shocked at the extent of the landslide.

Elcano had just arrived in Libon after being stranded for three days while trying to return from Jose Panganiban town in Camarines Norte. Most of the roads in the Bicol Region had become impassable due to heavy flooding caused by Tropical Storm “Kristine” (international name: Trami).

But the long trip did not faze her. She walked with quick steps, knowing she had to hurry. In about 30 minutes, the uniformed men stationed at both ends of the road covered by the landslide would not let anyone on the path she and at least five others intended to traverse.

The persistent drizzle also made everyone at risk from another landslide. 

Midway through, Elcano was warned that responders were still hauling soil up ahead. “Never mind, as long as we are able to cross and get home to our families,” she said.

Burabod is not Elcano’s neighborhood. But this path she was taking was her only way to get home to Sagrada Familia, another village isolated now by the landslide.

‘Explosions’

Half of the residents of Burabod had taken shelter in the adjoining village of San Vicente; the others were in Sitio (sub-village) Quigasang’s relocation site, which Elcano passed on the way to Sagrada Familia.

Perla de Guia, 55, of Zone 4 in Burabod, was now in Quigasang’s daycare center. She and 32 others, three of whom were persons with disabilities, shared one room. They were among the 336 households that evacuated due to the landslide.

Before the landslide occurred around 4 p.m. of Oct. 23, they heard the mountain “exploding.”

“We were at home when we heard the explosions,” De Guia told CoverStory.ph. The sound was coming from the cluster of bamboo and other trees on the mountain, which was lush and showed no signs of illegal logging.

“And then we realized that it was a landslide,” she said.

The loosened earth did not reach De Guia’s house, but she and the residents of Zones 1, 2, 3 and 4 fled their homes even before the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office ordered evacuation on the recommendation of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.

A video of the landslide circulated on social media on Tuesday. It was a slow process. According to residents who described the incident to CoverStory, it took about five minutes from the initial “explosion” for the loosened earth to reach the village road.

The safety offered by the daycare center still had not calmed De Guia, who constantly worried that the landslide may yet cover her house.

It was the first time for some of the Burabod residents, including herself, to evacuate their homes because of a typhoon, De Guia said. The usual evacuees are only those whose houses are not made of sturdy materials, she said.

Hampered operations

Due to their shelter’s isolation from the rest of Libon, the evacuees in Quigasang have not yet received aid from the local government.

This is also the case in the villages of Sta. Cruz, Bulusan and Bonbon, said Ian Secillano of Libon’s disaster risk reduction and management office. He said food, drinking water, and clothes were badly needed by the affected residents of not just those villages but also of others still reeling from the flood.

Three days after Kristine hit, some residents in inundated areas were still on their rooftops awaiting rescue.

One of the walls in Secillano’s office still bore stick-on notes of reports from each village needing water.

Fortunately, the Coast Guard managed to send help. A truck arrived at the town hall carrying two floating assets bearing relief goods and big letters announcing their shared name: Sea Hunter.

Missing only

Secillano said a Burabod resident is considered “missing” and “not dead,” which means that authorities are still hopeful that Mary Jane Nabia, 54, who was caught in the landslide, will be found alive.

This hope is shared by Nabia’s sister, Corazon Araya, 56.

“She is always left at home,” Araya tearfully told CoverStory of her sister. “When [the landslide] was happening, my son rushed home to tell her to go down [to the street]. She followed. We don’t know exactly where, but she went to another house. Then we did not see her anymore.”

“I hope they find her alive,” Araya said.

Araya and other residents blamed the landslide on the road network being built in the area. They also cited rumors of mining operations on the mountain.

The village captain, Irwin Perez, 50, dismissed the rumors as unfounded. He said that as early as 2008, the government had warned of the danger of landslides.

“The rain [brought by Kristine] was heavy, and there were already cracks in the mountain,” Perez said in an interview.

In Legazpi, the nearest city to Libon where there is a Pagasa weather bureau station, the amount of rainfall was record-breaking for the month of October. Kristine dumped 431 millimeters of rain, exceeding the 282.7 millimeters recorded just four years ago.

An 11 a.m. bulletin issued by Pagasa said the storm was leaving the Philippine area of responsibility west of Luzon in a westward direction towards Vietnam.

Perez said he had barely slept since the landslide on Tuesday, making sure that no one gets too close to the landslide-prone area. “We have already been unfortunate with one [casualty]. I don’t want there to be more,” he said.

Casualty count

As of 1 p.m. on Friday, Mary Jane Nabia’s name was still not included in the casualty count in province of Albay, although the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) has listed three dead—one man in Ligao City and two women in Guinobatan town, all of whom were victims of landslides.

OCD collates all the data reported to them by local DRRM offices.

Kristine affected 1.7 million residents of the Bicol Region. It flooded 792 villages and caused at least 16 landslides in the region.