Rescue workers searched for dozens of people buried under a mountain of garbage that collapsed on a landfill in the central Philippines on Friday, killing at least one.
A giant pile of garbage collapsed on about 50 people at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately run facility in Cebu City, on Thursday, burying about 50 people, officials said.
Landfill workers were among them, but it was not clear whether any were neighbours or others, as the Associated Press reported.
“There are signs of life,” Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival said at a news briefing, adding that “500 others” would join the search efforts, along with hundreds of rescue workers already at the site, which he expected to last until at least Sunday.
Rescue workers had limited usable equipment because any spark posed a risk of igniting the methane gas released from the landfill, he said.
According to Archival, thirty-four people are still missing, revising the number of 38 previously given on their Facebook page.
At least 12 workers were pulled alive from the garbage and admitted to hospital.
Jason Morata, the city’s assistant public information officer, told AFP that the mountain of trash “must be four storeys high.”
Aerial photographs released by police showed several structures crushed under the weight of garbage.
Morata said the buildings housed “company offices, human resources, administrators, and maintenance staff” for the private firm running the site.
“We are considering many factors. If you remember, there was an attack on Cebu, as well as two storms and earthquakes in late 2025,” he said.
Morata said information was slowly emerging because there was “no signal” at the dump site.
According to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions, the landfill “processes 1,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day.” The AP says it has 110 employees.
There was no response to calls made to the company on Friday.
“We don’t know what caused the collapse.
It was not raining at all,” said Marge Parkotello, a civilian employee of the police department in Consolación, a town that shares a common border with the dump site.
“Many of the victims are from Consolation,” he said.
Safety and health concerns have long beset landfills in many cities and towns in the Philippines, especially near poor communities where residents look for junk and leftover food in trash heaps, the AP reports.
More than 200 people were killed in July 2000 when an avalanche of garbage swallowed a shanty town in Manila where several thousand sanitation workers lived.
That tragedy, the worst of its kind in Philippine history, sparked public outrage over the open landfill. Legislation aimed at better regulation of waste management was passed months later.
