Philippines Storm Aftermath: Mudslide Buries Village Homes, Kills Five, Leaves Fourteen Missing in Hills

Manila, Philippines— A mudslide triggered by a tropical storm slammed into a hillside community in the northern Philippines on Thursday, killing at least five people and leaving 14 others missing under thick mud.

The slide hit around dawn in a mountain barangay in the Cordillera region, where days of rain from Tropical Storm Trami had soaked the slopes. Officials said a wall of mud, rocks, and uprooted trees broke loose above the village and buried at least 12 houses. Most residents were asleep.

By midday, police and army teams had pulled five bodies from the debris. The missing include women and children, according to local disaster officials. "The ground is still moving. We hear cracks," a municipal rescue officer said over radio. "We are digging with bare hands where we hear sounds."

The storm had already cut power and phone lines in three provinces before the slide. That blackout delayed calls for help. The first excavator reached the site nearly four hours after the collapse, forced to crawl over roads covered in landslides. Helicopters could not fly due to low clouds.

Survivors described a roar, then darkness. One man said he escaped through a window as mud filled his kitchen to the ceiling. His wife and two children are among the missing. Rescue workers marked the spots where dogs indicated possible bodies, placing sticks and cloth.

The Philippines averages 20 tropical cyclones a year, and mudslides are a recurring toll. In this area, illegal logging and small-scale hillside farming have stripped slopes of roots that hold soil. Local officials said they had issued an evacuation advisory Wednesday night, but many families stayed to guard livestock and belongings.

At the provincial hospital, officials listed 11 injured, most with fractures and cuts from debris. The national disaster agency said more than 200 people were moved to an elementary school being used as an evacuation center. Food and water were short. The storm was still dumping rain.

Forecasters warned of another 100 millimeters of rain by Friday morning. That forced commanders to pull crews back from the lower part of the slide zone at 4 p.m. after sensors picked up new movement uphill.

Search teams kept one excavator running under floodlights after sunset, working the top edge where the chance of finding survivors was highest.