Tragedy in Leyte

Reporters: Maki Pulido, Jiggy Manicad, at Dan Campilan On the morning of Feb. 17, 2006 residents of the Guinsaugon in Leyte province were awaken by a loud cracking sound that sent the earth shaking. Five minutes later, the town of more than one thousand residents were under a massive pile of mud. Within minutes, the tragedy were all over the local and international news. Helicopters hover above the area of St. Bernard municipality, hoping to hear cries of survivors amidst the stillness of the field. The site where the school and the church stood was replaced by enormous chunks of stones and soft eroding soil. Names of buried loved ones alternately echoed in the air as the first search started. Reporters Notebook flies the following day to Southern Leyte to piece together the remains of a catastrophe. Three reporters, three crews, three separate areas for a special report on those who lived, lives’ lost and what transpired inside the mountain seconds before the disaster. Close to a hundred media people have nestled in a nearby town, affixing satellites to local electricity to transmit images and live reports to Manila and all over the world. Aside from the dreadful bodycount of families covered by the landslide, prayers were turn most to the children attending class when the avalanche happened between 9 and 10 o’ clock in the morning. Maki Pulido joined the search and rescue team to where the school used to be. Her team climbed four hours, losing her running shoes in the process, as Jiggy Manicad explores the north side of the distraught town of Sogod while military troops aided with dogs to search for possible survivors and Dan Campilan braved the eroding soil over the residential area to determine the cause of the mudslide. The reporters’ individually notes the uncanny feeling as they step on the soft soil not knowing if people’s bodies are having their last breath, tens of feet under their own. Foreign rescue teams from neighbouring countries like Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia joined forces with our own bold squad to scout for decaying bodies since the vast field that once was their field of hopes and dreams became a nightmare on earth.