A landslide hit Compostela Valley in the early morning of Thursday, January 5, 2012. It left at least 25 people dead, 15 injured, and about a hundred still missing in Purok Diat Uno and Diat Dos in Barangay Napnapan.
The continuous rains and a slight tremor might have caused the landslide that occurred at 3:45 AM. The rains of the past 2 weeks might have saturated the ground. Also, the magnitude 3 quake that hit Davao Oriental at 12:01 AM of the same day might have attributed to the cause of the landslide.
Last December, Purok Diat Uno and Diat Dos were previously identified by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) as extremely high risk to landslides. Geologists measured the cracks on ridges on top of the mountain and found out they were getting bigger.
Compostela Valley Governor Arturo Uy said that the small scale miners in those areas had been told to evacuate but they kept coming back due to the gold rush. That is despite the earlier landslide in April 2011 that took the lives of at least 13 people.
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