{"id":28733,"date":"2018-09-24T07:05:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T07:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=28733"},"modified":"2018-09-24T07:05:26","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T07:05:26","slug":"cebu-landslide-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2018\/09\/24\/cebu-landslide-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Cebu landslide: should mining be banned in the Philippines?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cebu landslide: should mining be banned in the Philippines?<\/h4>\n

The death toll from the Cebu landslide continues to rise<\/a> – latest reports suggest that 45 bodies have been recovered to date<\/a>, with a further 34 people still missing, giving a likely final toll of 89 people.\u00a0 This comes on top of a confirmed toll of 95 people killed in landslides in the Cordillera region of the Philippines as a result of the recent typhoon.\u00a0 Most of those people were miners.<\/p>\n

\"Cebu

The enormous Cebu landslide. Image via ABS-CBN News, collected by Bullit Marquez, AP.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Inevitably, there is significant political fall-out from the event.\u00a0 Reports suggest that, when cracks were noted in the slopes above the quarry that was responsible for the Cebu landslide, an investigation was undertaken by officials<\/a> from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.\u00a0 According to the local mayor, Kristine Vanessa Chiong, they issued a clearance to allow mining to continue in the area three weeks prior to the collapse<\/a>.\u00a0 This is perhaps surprising given the magnitude of the cracks that are seen in the Youtube video that I highlighted last week<\/a>. A landslide of this size would have shown creep behaviour prior to failure; at the very least monitoring should have been in place to detect this.\u00a0 Four officials from the local division of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau have now been suspended<\/a>, including two geologists, the director and the head of finance and administration.<\/p>\n

\"Cebu

The aftermath of the Cbu landslide. Image from the PhilStar, collected by Aldo Nelbert Banaynal<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In this context it is unsurprising that questions are now being asked about the future of mining in the Philippines.\u00a0 President Rodrigo Duterte said on Friday that he wants to shut down mining operations in parts of the Philippines<\/a>.\u00a0 Of course it is up to the Philippines people to decide as to whether they wish to have mining in any part of the country.\u00a0 It is worth noting however that deadly landslides are not inevitable in mining areas. In countries with properly enforced regulation and well-designed mining operations, fatal landslides are rare.\u00a0 Thus, the problem is not the mining itself; the problem lies in the standards and regulation of mining activities.\u00a0 As Australia demonstrates, the extractive industries are both vital to society and an important part of the global economy.\u00a0 Blanket bans are not sensible, but proper regulation is essential.\u00a0 This should\u00a0 be a priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the aftermath of the Cebu landslide in the Philippines, which killed about 90 people, there is now a discussion as to whether mining should be banned <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":28737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[556,205,252,268,314],"class_list":["post-28733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","tag-features","tag-mining","tag-philippines","tag-quarrying","tag-se-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}