Cebu is a city of about one million people, located in central Philippines. Photo: Google maps
Rescue workers searched for survivors on Friday, after the collapse of a landfill in the central Philippines killed at least one person and left 38 missing.
Dozens of sanitation workers were buried on Thursday afternoon, when a mountain of garbage toppled onto them at the Binaliw landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu, a city of about one million people and a popular holiday destination.
At least 12 employees were pulled from the garbage and hospitalised, according to the official Facebook page of city mayor Nestor Archival.
Rescue workers were "fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons", he said.
"We don't know what caused the collapse, it wasn't raining at all," said Marge Parcotello, a civilian staff member of the police department in Consolacion, a town that shares a common boundary with the dump site.
"Many of the victims are from Consolacion," she said.
More than 200 people were killed in July 2000, when an avalanche of garbage consumed a Manila shanty town populated by several thousand scavengers.
The tragedy, the worst of its kind in Philippine history, prompted public outrage over open landfills. Legislation aimed at better regulation of waste management passed months later.
- AFP