The recovery of a body on Sunday brought the confirmed death toll to seven, with at least 29 people still missing as the crucial 72-hour window since the landslide in Cebu City came to an end.
About 50 sanitation workers were buried on Thursday when the mountain of garbage toppled onto them from an estimated height of 20 storeys at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility that handles refuse for the city of nearly one million.
“Yesterday, we detected two signs of life through our specialised radar. There were still heartbeats 30 metres (98 feet) below the debris, but right now, there are no reports of that anymore,” local fire officer Wendell Villanueva told AFP on Sunday.
He said it was unlikely “for people to still be alive” three days after “tonnes of debris and trash had collapsed over them”.
So far 12 employees have been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalised.
On Saturday, a rescue official said emergency workers had faced the danger of further collapse by the still-shifting mountain of refuse, forcing pauses in their efforts.
Rain had only increased that danger, Villanueva said.
In a phone call with AFP, Villanueva said the focus was expected to turn from rescue to recovery on Monday, later adding that the final decision would be up to an inter-agency team.
A public information officer separately said the focus was likely to shift to recovering bodies.
Outside the disaster site, dozens of family members huddled under tents provided to shield them from the sun, while others found spots nearer the facility to watch the rescue efforts.
“What we want now is to find them, alive or dead, so we can properly take care of them,” said Jezille Matabid, whose brother Junelle, a welder at the site, was among the missing.
‘Going crazy’
Another woman, who declined to give her name, said the lack of information about her older sister, a landfill employee, had been agonising.
“We feel like we’re going crazy here just waiting for an update. She’s three months pregnant,” she said.
Elmer Aguilar, whose brother Larry, a welder, was among the missing, said he had come with 10 others hoping to aid in the search effort, only to be turned away.
“We went here because we thought we could help dig, but when we arrived, the guards did not allow us to enter.”
Joel Garganera, a Cebu City council member, described the height from which the trash fell as “alarming”, estimating the top of the pile had stood 20 storeys above the area struck.
Images released by police showed a massive mound of trash atop a hill directly behind buildings that officials told AFP contained administrative offices and housing for employees.
In an interview with local media, Cebu Mayor Nestor Archival pointed to a recent earthquake and typhoon-driven rains as potential precipitating circumstances.
But Garganera said the mountain of garbage had been an obvious danger.
“Every now and then, when it rains, there are landslides happening around the city,” with “a landfill or a mountain that is made of garbage” posing a particular danger, Garganera said.
“The garbage is like a sponge, it really absorbs water. It doesn’t (take) a rocket scientist to say that eventually, the incident will happen.”
He said the disaster was a “double whammy” for the city, noting that the facility was the lone service provider for Cebu and adjacent communities.
According to the website of operator Prime Integrated Waste Solutions, the landfill processed 1,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily.
Calls to the company went unanswered on Sunday.