At least three dead following landslide at a waste dump in Cebu City, the Philippines.

Three people have now been confirmed dead and thirty five are still missing following a landslide at a waste dump in Cebu City, the Philippines, on Thursday 8 January 2026. The incident happened at about 4.00 pm local time, crushing a building where waste was sorted and compacted, and burying 50 sanitation workers at the site. Since this time twelve have been pulled out of the debris alive and three have been found dead. Rescue efforts are being hampered by rainfall, as well as methane leaking from the site which prevents the use of cutting equipment which might create sparks.

The aftermath of a landslide at the Barangay Binaliw waste dump outside Cebu City in the Philippines. Jacqueline Hernandez/Rappler.

The Barangay Binaliw waste site opened in 2019 on the site of a former Mango plantation, and has been dogged by controversy ever since. The site is officially a landfill site, however, landfill sites comprise one or more large excavated pits, which are then lined with waterproof clay and a dense plastic lining, and once they are filled to an agreed level, are sealed with more clay and then topsoil. Inspectors from the Cebu City Environment and Natural Resources Office were unable to find any trace of such a lining when they inspected the site in August 2024, instead finding an open dump site where waste was being piled ever higher.

Waste at the Barangay Binaliw site in September 2024. Juan Carlo de Vela/Sun Star.

Since its opening, people living close to the Barangay Binaliw site have complained about foul smells emerging from the site, and increasingly about the precarious way in which waste has been piled up, at a site close to many local homes. Despite these claims, the city has continued to send waste to the privately-owned site, something which has led to accusations of corruption, but which is probably more a result of a lack of alternative facilities to accommodate waste from the city, which has a population of about a million people.

A building crushed by debris following a landslide at the Barangay Binaliw waste site near Cebu City in the Philippines on 8 January 2025. Philippine Star.

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At least 116 dead as Typhoon Kalmaegi sweeps across the Philippines.

At least 116 people are now known to have died, with many more still missing, after Typhoon Kalmaegi swept across the central Philippines on Tuesday 4 November 2025. The majority of the deaths occurred in the city of Cebu, and surrounding metropolitan area, with 35 people having apparently drowned in a single incident in the town of Liloan, with 76 people having died in the greater metropolitan area, despite over 400 000 being evacuated from areas deemed to be at risk ahead of the storm. On Mindanao Island a military helicopter taking part in relief efforts crashed during the storm, leading to the deaths of all six crewmembers.

Damage in the city of Talisay on Cebu Island following the passage of Typhoon Kalmaegi on 4 November 2025. Jam Sta Rosa/AFP/Getty Images.

On Negros Island at least 12 people have died and 12 more are still missing after heavy rains triggered a lahar, which buried a number of homes in Canlaon City. Lahars are ash-laden flash floods associated with volcanoes. They can be caused directly by volcanic eruptions, for example when hot lava encounters a glacial lake rapidly destroying an ice dam, but are also common in areas of high seasonal rainfall, where ash deposits from a volcano can build up during the dry season, creating dams on seasonal waterways, which temporarily halt the flow of water, then give way rapidly leading to dramatic flash floods. The Negtos lahar was caused by heavy rains associated with Typhoon Kalmaegi falling onto unconsolidated ash from an eruption on Mount Kanloan last year.

Tropical storms are caused by the warming effect of the Sun over tropical seas. As the air warms it expands, causing a drop in air pressure, and rises, causing air from outside the area to rush in to replace it. If this happens over a sufficiently wide area, then the inrushing winds will be affected by centrifugal forces caused by the Earth's rotation (the Coriolis effect). This means that winds will be deflected clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, eventually creating a large, rotating Tropical Storm. They have different names in different parts of the world, with those in the northwest Pacific being referred to as typhoons.

The structure of a tropical cyclone. Wikimedia Commons.

Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms. 

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

Typhoon Kalmaegi, known as Typhoon Tino in the Philippines, deposited 183 mm of rain onto Cebu Island in the 24 hours before making landfall. When it arrived, it brought with it sustained winds of more than 130 km per hour, with gusts exceeding 180 km per hour. Storms such as this are becoming more frequent due to global warming which is warming the oceans faster than the land, with the Philippines, which typically suffers about 20 storms per year, having been hit by twelve major storms since the typhoon season began in June this year: Tropical Storm Wutip in June, Typhoon Danas, Severe Tropical Storm Wipha, and Severe Tropical Storm Co-May in July, Tropical Depression Fabian and Typhoon Kajiki in August, Tropical Storm Mita, Typhoon Ragasa, and Typhoon Bualoi in September, and Typhoon Matmo, Severe Tropical Storm Fengshen, and Tropical Depression Salome in October. Furthermore, it is thought likely that a system currently known as Tropical Depression Thirty Two, which is currently crossing the central Pacific, will increase in strength and become a Typhoon-strength storm before making landfall in the Philippines this weekend.

A rescue team in the Talamban District of Cebu City following the passage of Typhoon Kalmaegi on 4 November 2025. Philippine Red Cross/Reuters.

As well as leading to larger and more frequent storms, warmer seas can enable them to change course rapidly, making it harder to predict where and when they will make landfall. However, this does not appear to have been the issue in the Philippines this week, where over half a million people were evacuated in advance from areas considered vulnerable to the storm. Instead, the storm has contributed to a growing corruption scandal in the country, with approximately 26.6 billion Philippine Pesos (about US$452 million) having been spent on flood defences which were found to be insufficient, incomplete, or simply absent as the storm approached.

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Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake to the east of Cebu Island, the Philippines.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology recorded a Magnitude 6.9 Earthquake at a depth of 5 km, off the east coast of the northern part of Cebu Island, Philippines, slightly before 10.00 pm local time (slightly before 2.00 pm GMT) on Tuesday 30 September 2025. The event  was felt across the central Philippines, but no tsunami warning was issued, and no damage or casualties have been reported at the time of writing, although it is possible that unreported damage or injuries have occurred in remote locations. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology is warning of a high possibility of significant aftershocks. 

The approximate location of the 30 September 2025 Cebu Earthquake. USGS.

The geology of the central Philippines is Complex. The west of Mindanao Island is located on the Banda (or Sunda) Microplate, and the east on the Philippine Plate, which is being subducted beneath the Sunda (or Banda) Microplate along the central part of the island. Immediately to the east of the Island the Pacific Plate is being subducted along the Philippine Trench, and passes beneath eastern Mindanao as it sinks into the Earth. This is not a smooth process, an the plates constantly stick together then break apart again as the pressure builds up, resulting in Earthquakes.

Subduction beneath the Philippines. Yves Descatoire/Singapore Earth Observatory.

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Four dead and six missing following landslide at copper mine on Cebu Island, the Philippines.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the Philippines is carrying out an investigation at a copper mine on Cebu Island, following a landslide that is known to have killed four miners, as well as injuring another eleven and leaving six more unaccounted for. The incident happened at the Carmen Pit of Carmen Copper Corporation, a subsidiary of Atlas Consolidated Mining Development Corporation, in Toledo City at about 1.00 pm local time on Tuesday 22 December 2020. The incident happened after weeks of heavy rain in the area, which is thought to have led to the limestone and mudstone through which the mine cuts becoming waterlogged, and therefore structurally weakened. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. However, the mine site is known to be close to a fault, the Barot Fault, and the possibility that this played a role in the landslip cannot be ruled out.

 

The site of a landslide at the Carmen Pit mine on Cebu Island. Alan Tangcawan/Sun Star.

Cebu has a long rainy season, lasting from May to January, driven by the Asian Southwest Monsoon. This has been particularly severe this year, driven by a La Niña weather system and a series of tropical storms, the most recent of which, Tropical Depression Vicky, swept across parts of the Philippines last week.

The spatial relationship between the Barot Fault, the Carmen Pit, and the other pits and faults of the Atlas Copper Complex. Atlas Mining.

Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry season the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate. 

 

Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.

Much of Southeast Asia has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven by winds from  the South China Sea that lasts from November to February and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean from March to October. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest. However Myanmar is largely protected from the Northeast Monsoon by the mountains separating the country from Yunnan Province in China.

 

The winds that drive the Northeast and Southwest Monsoons in Southeast Asia. Mynewshub.

The La Niña weather system is the opposite of the El Niño weather system, in which unusually cold surface temperatures spread across the equatorial Pacific from the upwelling zone on the South American coast. This traps warm water from the western Pacific, preventing it from spreading east and warming the central Pacific. This leads to lower evaporation over the (cooler) east Pacific, leading to low rainfall on the west coast of South America, and higher evaporation over the (warmer) west Pacific, leading to higher rainfall over East and Southeast Asia and northern Australia.

 

The effects of a La Niña weather system in December-February. NOAA.

Tropical storms, known as hurricanes in East and Southeast Asia, are caused by solar energy heating the air above the oceans, which causes the air to rise leading to an inrush of air. If this happens over a large enough area the inrushing air will start to circulate, as the rotation of the Earth causes the winds closer to the equator to move eastwards compared to those further away (the Coriolis Effect). This leads to tropical storms rotating clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere. These storms tend to grow in strength as they move across the ocean and lose it as they pass over land (this is not completely true: many tropical storms peter out without reaching land due to wider atmospheric patterns), since the land tends to absorb solar energy while the sea reflects it.

 

The formation of a tropical cyclone. Natural Disaster Management.

Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms.  

 

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

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Online courses in Palaeontology. 

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