World

Girl, 3, Rescued From Rubble 60 Hours After Deadly Landslide in Philippines

‘A MIRACLE’

Searchers had nearly given up hope of finding more survivors.

A policeman carries a baby crying as officials order force evacuation from the landslide hit village of Masara in Municipality of Maco, Davao de Oro, Philippines
Jeoffrey Maitem/Getty Images

Rescue crews saved a three-year-old girl from the muck days after a landslide that had already claimed 27 lives in a gold-mining village in the Philippines. The girl was recovered in Masara, a village on Mindanao island, where the Philippine Red Cross led efforts to find survivors buried in the earth, sometimes using only their hands to dig. Edward Macapili, a local official for the Davao de Oro province, called the child’s rescue a “miracle” and said it “gives hope to the rescuers” of finding more survivors. “A child’s resilience is usually less than that of adults, yet the child survived,” Macapili said. The Red Cross shared photos on their Facebook page of the tiny child wrapped in shiny emergency blankets and safely carried by staff into a medical center for treatment. The search continues for dozens of missing people affected by the landslide, which occurred Tuesday night because of heavy rainfall.

Read it at The Guardian