A new lease on life. 

Fritz Vallente is one of 18 persons who cheated death in the tragic trash slide in Sitio Kainsikan, Barangay Binaliw, Cebu City.

Almost a week after the incident, he said, he would still hear the terrifying sound at that moment a mountain of garbage, about 20 storeys high, collapsed. His colleagues' cry for help continues to haunt him.

GMA Regional TV Balitang Bisdak chanced upon Fritz who was on his slow steps toward his residence near the private sanitary landfill facility, as he was tagging along his three-year-old child.

A bandage is wrapped around his arm, he sustained a wound on his shoulder, and a foot is still swollen. Earlier, was dispensed from the hospital after a four-day confinement.

Fritz narrated that he is among employees pinned under a structure that collapsed. He works at the billing office held by the said structure.

On the afternoon of January 8, 2026, he heard rumbling and the ground shook. Darkness took over coupled by calls for help, shouting, wailing, groaning, grimacing in pain coming from his colleagues who were pinned in the collapsed structure.

He said he was hit by scaffoldings, and that he struggled to get out because his foot got wedged in the metal wreck.

Fritz added that it was indeed impossible for him to get out quickly at that moment no matter how much he wanted to. But his desire to survive was stronger than his fear. He said he cannot accept his life would end under heaps of garbage.

After about two hours, Fritz felt persons pulling him out of the rubble. A few of his colleagues were first to respond to the incident.

Fritz said further that he marked his birthday on January 2. He thought initially, under the rubble, that it would be his last birthday. But he prayed hard for a new lease on life.

Based on the list from the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the number of missing persons has decreased to 17, while death toll reached 19, as of 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, January 14.

Search and rescue operations continue at Ground Zero, as of this writing. Debris of the collapsed structure removed by crane and other heavy equipment were moved to a portion of the Prime Waste Solutions Cebu facility, the operator of the sanitary landfill.