Worker dies in Ilocos landslide

By Freddie Lazaro

SANTA, Ilocos Sur – A construction worker was killed and his co-worker seriously injured May 15 in a landslide near the approach to the newly-built President Quirino Bridge in Barangay Banaoang, here, police said.

The landslip buried alive 57-year-old Johnny Bajet, said Senior Police Officer Joseph Pineza, case investigator.

Attempts to dig him out of the rubble proved futile as he was already dead when co-workers pulled him out, Pineza said.

Luckier was Arnel Basconcillo, 32, a co-worker and neighbor of Bajet in Barangay Pasungol, this municipality, who was also buried in the landslide but was pulled out in time.

Pineza said the accident happened while construction workers were making an alternative route for shipping out sand and gravel from the downstream southern approach of the Quirino Bridge.