Weakened by torrential rains from a strong storm, the large hillside collapsed onto a miners’ hut some 500 metres (546 yards) below.
“If I wanted to do my own thing, I would close all the mines in the Philippines,” Duterte said during a televised meeting of the federal government’s disaster response team.
Mangkhut, the world’s strongest storm this 12 months, lashed the Philippines over the weekend with torrential rains and fierce winds that snapped electricity pylons and tore off roofs.
Authorities said dozens of individuals died within the storm, most of them buried in landslides in mountainous regions in northern Luzon, the Philippines’ largest island.
Hundreds of rescuers lined up in rows to form a human chain to throw rocks, debris and tree trunks away from the search area in Itogon.
The massive landslide left a large gap within the green hillside, dotted with small houses with roofs of rusting metal.
Because damaged roads made it unattainable for heavy equipment to pass, soldiers, police and miners used shovels and water from a close-by stream to loosen the earth.
It was incredibly slow work as distraught relatives watched and waited for news of their missing family members.
Residents of the distant town within the Cordillera range, about 200 km (125 miles) north of Manila, sought shelter within the constructing to avoid the wrath of the Mangkhut.
The two-story structure is an old shack abandoned by a gold mining company, Palangdan said, and is positioned in an area that has since been settled by small-scale miners.
The bodies found were wrapped in cloth and placed in a row under a makeshift tent pitched on a close-by road, above a barracks.
On Monday, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu ordered a halt to all small-scale mining activities within the Cordillera region.
Landslides and floods elsewhere within the Philippines have forced nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes, in line with police estimates.
On Sunday, Duterte and government officials flew to the hard-hit Cagayan area. He told a televised briefing: “I share the sadness of those who have lost their loved ones. Those who [are what] we call unforeseen events. In insurance, it is an act of God. I don’t know how it can be an act of God, but that is the term used by insurance.”
Weeks of heavy monsoon rains have made hillsides in the region unstable.
Crescencio Bacalso, governor of Benguet, the province where Itogon is located, also cited a tragic case in Baguio, the region’s largest city, where small-scale miners helped find a woman whose house was buried.
“Unfortunately, there was a second collapse, and the rescuers themselves became victims of the landslide. Six of them managed to get out, but two others went missing,” he added.
“It rained in Benguet for a month just before (Mangkhut) arrived, so the ground was soggy, leading to erosion and landslides,” Bacalso said.
Agence France-Presse, Kyodo, Reuters, The Guardian
This article was published within the print edition of the South China Morning Post under the title: Rush to search out dozens of individuals feared buried after Mangkhut
