Manila: Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu has ordered the immediate suspension of all mining activities in the Cordilleras following deadly landslides triggered by typhoon Mangkhut on Saturday.

“This is a wake-up call,” Cimatu said in La Trinidad, Benguet, during a press briefing held together with Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on Monday.

Roque said the death toll from the landslides in the highland Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) has reached 54. Forty nine are missing and 33 injured. Of those killed, 34 perished in a landslide in Itogon.

During the press briefing, Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan said the high number of deaths in Itogon was due to the collapse of a three-storey shelter in the village of Uncab.

The structure, an abandoned building owned by the private firm Benguet Mining, was being used as a shelter by a number of mining families when the ground underneath collapsed due to the heavy rains.

The structure used to be a mining bunkhouse that had been turned into a chapel.

“We had repeatedly been warning the residents to seek shelter somewhere else, such as the evacuation centres where they would be safer, but they did not heed our appeals,” Palangdan said.

All of those killed were small-scale miners.

Cimatu said he has ordered a cease and desist of all illegal small-scale mining in Cordillera and that he would implement the directive even if has to send armed personnel to enforce it.

“The Department of Environment and Natural Resources will be sending men from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to effect mandatory relocation of all individuals in the areas classified as geohazards and to prevent further loss of lives,” he added

“All temporary permits granted to small-scale mining companies in CAR are cancelled effective today,” Cimatu said.

There were a number of accidents killing dozens of people operating private, small-scale mining operations in the past including some in Compostela Province in Mindanao.

Roque said of the 54 fatalities, 34 came from Itogon; Baguio City, nine; Mountain Province, six; La Trinidad, three; Kalinga and Benguet (Tuba), one each. For the missing, Itogon had 42; Baguio City had five; Benguet (Kabayan) and Tuba, one each. For the injured, Benguet had 17; Ifugao, five; Mountain Province, four; Kalinga, three; and Apayao and Baguio City, two each.

Typhoon Mangkhut brought in devastating 170km\h winds on Saturday morning. It has affected a total of 147,540 families or 591,762 persons in 31 provinces in the regions of Ilocos, Cagayan, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Metro Manila, Mimaropa, and the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Some 50,686 families or 192,842 persons are now being aided in 1,899 evacuation centres while another 6,510 families or 26,666 individuals are being aided outside of evacuation centres.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Mangkhut, known in the Philippines as Ompong, the National Police said it is shifting focus from search and rescue to law and order and support to relief and rehabilitation operations to hasten restoration to normalcy of all public and private functions and services briefly disrupted in areas affected by calamity.

“Part of our post disaster law and order functions include enforcement of regulations on fair trade imposed by the Department of Trade and Industry against hoarding, profiteering and illegal trade practices to ensure availability of consumer goods in the market,” National Police Director General Oscar Albayalde said.