Seven missing after landslip

A landslip in Kg Alitang in Tongod , Telupid. (April 2)(picture goes with story slug kkslandslip020417)

KOTA KINABALU: Seven people, including five children, from a family are missing after a landslip swept away their wooden house into a river.

The five are two 13-year-old boys and three eight-year-olds whose gender are not yet known.

The rest are two 17-year-old girls.

During the incident on Saturday, they were with four others at a wor­ker’s quarters in an oil palm estate when the landslip struck and carried away their home into the river.

Two adults and two other children – a boy and a girl – were rescued by villagers who saw them clinging to debris in the river.

The landslip in Kampung Alitang, Tongod, some 200km from here, had struck along the Crocker Range in Central Sabah after heavy rains in the area since March 30.

Yesterday, rescuers from central Tongod and the interior Sook district, off Keningau, were still struggling through difficult terrain to reach the scene of the tragedy.

Sabah Public Defence Department director Kol Mulliadi Al-Hamdi Ladin said it had received a distress call from the estate owner at about 12.20pm on Saturday and a team was mobilised to the area.

“However, we are still not able to enter or reach the place as the bridge linking the estate has been damaged,” he said.

He further added that those involved were believed to be Filipino workers and their fa­milies.

“Updates will be given when we have them,” said Kol Mulliadi.

Rescuers from Keningau first res­ponded to the case as the incident had taken place close to the district border although it is in Tongod.