A catastrophic landfill collapse in Montalban, Rizal, on Saturday afternoon has left approximately 50 individuals missing, raising fears of a death toll surpassing January’s deadly garbage slide in Cebu City that claimed 36 lives. The incident occurred at 2:00 PM local time at the ISWIMS-operated facility in Barangay San Isidro, initially affecting around 100 people according to preliminary assessments.
Initial reports from the University of the Philippines’ Philippine Collegian indicate a concerning absence of coordinated government-led rescue operations in the immediate aftermath. The student publication further revealed that landfill operator International Solid Waste Integrated Management Specialist Inc. (ISWIMS) has been restricting access to information, blocking both journalists and local residents from obtaining details about the disaster and its casualties.
The collapse, reportedly triggered by three backhoe vehicles operating at the site, buried numerous victims under tons of waste material. The tragedy strikes a vulnerable community that had already been facing the threat of demolition, with approximately 1,000 families potentially facing displacement from their homes adjacent to the landfill facility.
This disaster echoes previous waste management tragedies in the Philippines, including the April 2013 Rodriguez trash slide that killed four people, and more recently, the January 8 Binaliw landfill collapse in Cebu City that resulted in 36 fatalities. The Cebu incident was attributed to unsafe operational practices by private contractors, including improper waste stacking techniques that created unstable garbage mounds.
The Montalban area has undergone significant environmental transformation in recent decades, with once-pristine mountains and valleys converted into dumping grounds for metropolitan Manila’s waste. This shift occurred following the permanent closure of Quezon City’s Payatas Landfill in 2017, which itself was the site of the country’s most devastating garbage slide in July 2000 that killed at least 218 people with hundreds more remaining missing.
As of Sunday, local government authorities had not issued official statements regarding the latest incident, with response efforts potentially hampered by the weekend holiday. The situation highlights ongoing challenges in waste management practices and regulatory oversight of private landfill operators across the Philippines.