MANILA, Philippines — The self-imposed Yuletide break of some small-scale miners in Compostela Valley has actually saved their lives and their family when a massive landslide hit their community on Thursday that has so far claimed the lives of 31 people, with 39 others missing.

Senior Police Officer 1 Lorinda Bacaron, Operations chief of the Pantukan Police station, said the number of fatalities would have been more than 150 if the tragedy occurred on other dates outside the Christmas season.

“Most of the miners there would usually go back to their hometowns to celebrate Christmas and New Year with their relatives,” said Bacaron in a phone interview.

She revealed that almost all the miners in Barangay Napnapan and other nearby mining sites are not natives of Compostela Valley, adding that most of them came from other provinces of Mindanao like Davap del Norte, Surigao provinces and even some parts of the Visayas.

“This is the reason why there was an initial 150 missing, because the Purok (sub-village) leaders initially thought that all the miners they know were in their houses when that landslide occurred,” said Bacaron.

Some of the victims are those who decided to stay or have no money to go to their hometowns.

Bacaron said more than 150 persons would have died since the affected households are 700, some partially-damaged while some are totally buried.

Maj. Jacob Obligado, in-charge of the rescue operations in Pantukan town, said the land area affected is 60 meters by 350 meters in Barangay Napnapan.

As of Sunday, he said they have recovered 31 cadavers, 25 of them are already identified.

The number of missing, however, went down from 45 to 39 since six persons were confirmed to be either among the cadavers recovered or found out to be alive.

But Bacaron said they expect the number of missing persons to rise since the local rescue teams have been receiving reports of missing persons from their respective relatives.

Earlier, Bacaron said there could be a slight chance of getting more survivors since the rescue and operations, citing her assessment based on past cases of landslides.