RODRIGUEZ, Philippines — Lenny* recalled freezing when he saw the first heap of garbage collapse underneath the feet of his fellow scavengers on the afternoon of Feb. 20, at a landfill in the town of Rodriguez, in the Philippines’ Rizal province. Moments later, a larger perimeter caved. In an instant, a crater of trash had […]

RODRIGUEZ, Philippines — Lenny* recalled freezing when he saw the first heap of garbage collapse underneath the feet of his fellow scavengers on the afternoon of Feb. 20, at a landfill in the town of Rodriguez, in the Philippines’ Rizal province. Moments later, a larger perimeter caved. In an instant, a crater of trash had swallowed up hundreds of people. Scavengers aren’t technically employed by the landfill and are charged 50 pesos (about $1) as a weekly entrance fee. Armed with nothing more than T-shirts wrapped around their faces, they sift through the trash collected from nearby Metro Manila, looking for plastic and metal items they can sell to local junk shops by the kilo for recycling. According to Lenny (who asked not to use his real name for fear of reprisal) and other eyewitnesses, after the collapse, the landfill management ordered the dumping of more garbage and the bulldozing the surrounding debris to create a path downward. That ended up trapping dozens of scavengers under the trash. Mark Delos Reyes, spokesman for International Solid Waste Integrated Management Specialist (ISWIMS), the private company operating the landfill, denied that additional waste was dumped immediately after the trash slide. “All dumping was immediately halted. Any truck or equipment movement they saw in the area was strictly for our emergency search and retrieval operations, not waste disposal.” When Lenny spoke to Mongabay, more than 48 hours after the incident, his cousin was still missing. He said he was unaware there was any search…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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