“It is everybody’s hope that people are still alive,” Macapili said.”Our rescue team is in a hurry because every second counts when it comes to human life.”The landslide left a deep, brown gouge down the mountain. Rescuers pulled a person alive from the mud 11 hours after it hit, Macapili said.”So there’s a chance,” he added.Police, soldiers and rescuers from Davao de Oro and the adjacent Davao del Norte province have been deployed to Masara to help the search and retrieval operation.While rescuers were using heavy earth-moving equipment in places, they had to rely on their bare hands and shovels in areas where they believed there were bodies, Macapili said.”The soil that covered the buses was very thick — it could almost cover a two-story building,” he said.
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