Some of the stranded residents wait for rescue. Typhoon rains caused mudslides in Baguio City Friday, killing 12 miners.(AP)

Baguio City — Twelve pocket miners died, nine were seriously injured, and seven rescuers went missing after two huge landslides buried at least nine makeshift camps located in the boundaries of Kias, Baguio City and the towns of Itogon and Tuba, Benguet late Friday afternoon, police said Saturday.

This brought the death toll from typhoon “Kiko” to 23 in Central and Northern Luzon where 73,000 people were affected by floods and landslides from monsoon rains enhanced by the storm.

Chief Superintendent Orlando Pestano, regional director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera and chairman of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC), identified six of the fatalities from the mine site camps as Roger Dulnuan, Philip Bugnadon, John Guinoban, Eddie Dulawan, Pollen Buhong, and Bryan Bay-ong.

Six other bodies remained unidentified as of press time. The bodies were recovered by the rescue teams at the Emerald creek, the school area and other parts of Kias and Tuba, Benguet.

Dulnuan and Bugnadon were still alive when rescued but later died at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center from multiple injuries.

Relatives had a difficult time identifying the bodies which were bloated after being buried under mud and water by the landslide.

Pestano identified the survivors as Gerard Farnican, 30, a resident of Km. 3, La Trinidad, Benguet; Dennis Gomatin; Benjamin Daulayan, 20; Steve Chaloyen, 24; Napoleon Dimanga, 45; Dennis Dulnuan, 31; Nestor Puguoen, 19; Edgar Daulayan and Dominique Daluyen, all pocket miners and residents of Kias, Baguio City.

The small-scale mining site here is described by experts as a landslide- prone area due to its loose soil and rock foundation. But hundreds of miners risk working in the area because of its substantial mineral deposits.

Rescue teams had a difficult time searching for the missing victims because of the continuous heavy downpour prevailing in the critical small-scale mining site to avoid further casualties of the landslide incident.

According to Senior Superintendent Samuel Diciano, PRO-COR deputy regional director for administration, at least five pocket miners were allegedly buried by the first landslide that happened in the site.

However, when some of their colleagues tried to rescue them from the debris, another huge landslide from the mountain slope buried them, resulting in a larger number of fatalities and missing pocket miners.

Last month, two pocket miners from the same group of small-scale miners in the area died after they were buried by a landslide which occurred at the height of strong winds and heavy rains due to the prevailing unpredictable weather condition in this mountain resort city.

The elite rescue team of the Philex Mining Corporation, supported by other rescue teams from the Benguet Corporation, the Benguet Federation of Small-scale Miners, Philippine Military Academy (PMA), Philippine National Police (PNP) and the RDCC are conducting the search, rescue and retrieval operations for the missing miners despite strong winds and heavy rains. The miners are connected with the Emerald Mountain Explorers Association Inc. (EMEAI) which was operating three units of ball mills in their respective camps in the area, particularly at the tri-boundary of Baguio City-Itogon-Tuba, Benguet Province.

“They were resting in the area when the incident occurred,” said Senior Supt. Danilo Pelisco, chief of the Benguet Police.

Pelisco said that mud, earth and boulders cascaded the mountain slope and hit the three miners’ camps adjacent to the Liwliw Creek at around 9 a.m.

“Some small scale miners responded to help and proceeded to the landslide area but another wave of landslide occurred and hit them,” said Pelisco.

“There were only five casualties in the 9 a.m. landslide but the number of casualties increased because of the second landslide, at around 11 a.m., because some miners responded but they were also buried,” he said.

Two hours earlier, Pelisco said nine people were injured when a shanty on a slope of Emerald mountain, Kias, Baguio City was swept away by landslide due to heavy rains.

“The follow-up rescue operation resulted in the retrieval of the cadaver along a river in Camp 2 on Kennon Road in Tuba believed to be one of the two landslide victims,” said Pelisco.

On Thursday, three siblings were killed while their parents were injured when their house was also buried in a landslide in Camp 8 also in Baguio City.

In Tarlac, Senior Superintendent Rudy Lacadin, provincial police director of Tarlac, said the cadaver of missing French Caillot Thierry was retrieved at around 3 p.m. on Friday.

This brings to seven the death toll in Tarlac alone, including Thierry’s companions in Mount Pinatubo trek identified as French Chelot Martine and Belgian Steyleman Waler. Lacadin, however, insisted that Waler is French.

It was recalled that two groups of mountaineers, composed of a group of nine Canadians and three Koreans and their respective tour guides, were reported trapped in Sitio Tapal, Barangay Sta. Juliana in Capas town on Thursday morning after the O’Donnel River overflowed due to heavy downpour for the past days.

They were on a trekking expedition in Mount Pinatubo and police officials have already ordered an investigation as to why they were allowed amid heavy rains spawned by typhoon “Kiko”.

“During the search and rescue mission, we accounted six of the Westerners and the three Koreans,” said Lacadin in a phone interview.

Following the death of their two companions, Lacadin said it turned out that the nine Westerners are not Canadians as earlier reported but eight French and a Belgian.

“We thought all along that they were Canadians because that’s what on the record of the local tourism office in Sta. Juliana in Capas. They registered as Canadians and not French and Belgian,” said Lacadin.

Chief Superintendent Leo Nilo dela Cruz, director of the Central Luzon Regional Police, said all the Westerners are French nationals, adding that they have not received any report of a Belgian fatality.

The six rescued French, he said, were Araga Radjon, Le Guvader Beatrice, Bazin Dudier, Navarre Philippe and Fouchard Marie France while the three Koreans as Han Chung, Xang Hua and Han Sany.

Aside from the three foreigners, Lacadin said four other Filipinos died of drowning in Capas town area—two of them of separate drowning and are yet to be identified, the other one identified as Orlando Fernando, the French’s guide and barangay security officer Fidel Reyla who drowned while searching for the missing foreigners.

In other developments, barangay officials of Pinsao Proper here reported 6-inch to 1-foot cracks in many parts of the barangay following four days of continuous heavy downpour that pose a threat to hundreds of residential structures in the area.

Concerned residents have started backfilling the cracks on the ground as a stop-gap measure while awaiting the plans of the city government in stabilizing the obviously weakened mountain slope to protect the people.

In nearby Itogon, Benguet, a huge landslide which was a result of the continuous heavy downpour over the past several days caused the eventual disappearance of several buildings of the Luneta Elementary School and the evacuation of the members of six families near the school buildings.

The Luneta Elementary School was heavily damaged last year when a huge portion of the barangay with an estimated land area of 50 hectares suddenly caved in at the height of Typhoon Nina.

Pestano appealed to residents living near the river banks of the Bued river from Tuba, Benguet to Rosario, La Union to immediately secure any floating body which they happen to encounter and report the same to the RDCC in the Cordillera since they might be one of the missing miners buried by a landslide and washed down the river.

Meanwhile, a 70-year-old resident of Barangay Paudpod died of cardiac arrest during the height of floodwaters, according to the Philippine National Red Cross officials.

Red Cross officials identified the fatality as Reynoso Dumaplin. In a related development, DPWH district engineer Hercules Manglicmot said the breach in one of the dikes can be repaired as soon as the waters coming from Maraunot and Balinbaquero subside.

Manglicmot said that the damaged portion of the national highway along Barangay Carael, in Botolan, will be repaired within two weeks after the situation returns to normal.

He said that more than 80 meters of the national highway was washed out by rampaging waters which flooded 10 barangays since Thursday night. He said a bailey bridge will be constructed as soon as the materials needed are transported from Barangay Apo-apo, Cabangan, Zambales.

DPWH assistant regional director Domingo Mariano said that the regional office will immediately release funds and materials for the immediate construction and rehabilitation of destroyed roads.

Meanwhile, Botolan Mayor Rogelio Yap, General Ralph Villanueva of the Philippine Army and Manglicmot inspected the town.

The protective dikes along the Bucao river which was built 17 years ago after the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano was destroyed when the waters coming from Maraunot and Balinbaquero rivers overflowed and flooded barangays Beneg, Batonlapoc, Carael, Paco, San Juan, Bangan,San Miguel Consuelo, Paudpod, and Capayawan, all in Botolan.

The Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council reported that almost 365 families were affected and were temporarily evacuated to several temporary shelters in the town.