Residents of Mankayan Evacuated
Danger Zone: Sinking Area
I was in Mankayan, in the Philippines, about a year and a half ago and one of the issues I reported on was the sinking and ground subsistence in the area as a result of irrisponsible underground mining practices. I recently recieved a message from the Cordillera People’s Alliance reporting that:
“Residents of Brgy* Aurora in Mankayan, Benguet province are now evacuating as a result of the continuing massive land subsidence in Mankayan, Benguet. Long years of Lepanto Mining’s underground large mining operations has created mazes of tunnels underground has been causing land subsidence as early as the 1970′s, the worse cases were in 2009. The disastrous land subsidence in 1999 buried alive a local resident whose body was never found.”
*[Brgy=Barangay=Municipality]
Careless underground mining practices have induced surface subsistence and ground collapse. Many homes and buildings have been abandoned, and can be seen sinking into the ground. One Lepanto worker is quoted as saying that there are tunnels "as big as municipal buildings" underneath the area. Residents of Barangay Aurora, in Mankayan, are now being evacuated for their safety.
This is the spot where there used to be an elementary school, the Victoria Gold mine's tailings pond is visible just below. In 1999, the school building was suddenly swept away in a landslide killing Pablo Gomez, a local villager who was in the building at the time. The loss could have been considerably worse, however, if the landslide had occurred during school hours when there would have been as many as two hundred elementary school children in the building.
The view from Mankayan, where the houses are build along the side of the mountains.
You can see more recent photos from Mankayan HERE
More information at the Cordillera People’s Alliance
