Mound of garbage collapses at Philippine landfill, killing 2 and leaving 36 others missing

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — An avalanche of garbage and debris buried or trapped workers in low-slung buildings at a landfill in the Philippines, killing two people, injuring a dozen and leaving 36 others missing, officials said Friday.

Thirteen people were rescued alive overnight, but one of them later died, authorities said. A second body was discovered later.

Rescue teams were searching for three dozen people still trapped after the mountain of garbage, earth and debris collapsed on them Thursday afternoon in the village of Binaliw in Cebu city, officials and police said. The dead and missing were all workers in the landfill and waste management facility, officials said.

One of those rescued, a female landfill worker, died while being brought to a hospital, regional police director Brig. Gen. Roderick Maranan told The Associated Press. The rest survived with injuries and were hospitalized, Maranan said.

The body of a 25-year-old engineer, who worked in the facility, was recovered Friday afternoon, Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival said in a statement.

Jaylord Antigua, a 31-year-old office worker in the landfill, said that the collapse of the mountain of garbage unfolded rapidly without warning and in good weather. It destroyed his office, where he managed to extricate himself with bruises on his face and arms by crawling under the rubble and debris.

“I saw a light and crawled toward it in a hurry, because I feared there will be more landslides,” Antigua told the AP. “It was traumatic. I feared that it was my end, so this is my second life.”

Search and rescue efforts would proceed indefinitely at the facility, which has 110 employees, Archival and the Office of Civil Defense said.

“All response teams remain fully engaged in search and retrieval efforts to locate the remaining missing persons with strict adherence to safety protocols,” Archival said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“The city government assures the public and the families of those affected that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure safety, transparency, accountability and compassionate assistance as operations continue,” Archival said.

Pictures released by authorities showed rescuers with earthmoving equipment scouring a building devastated in the garbage avalanche, with its twisted tin roofs and iron beams.

Relatives waited in anguish as the search and rescue proceeded. A woman wept openly and asked the rescuers to speed up the search.

One of the buildings hit by the wall of garbage that cascaded down in the landfill was a warehouse where workers separated recyclable waste and rubbish, Maranan said.

Such landfills and open dumpsites have long been a source of safety and health concerns in many cities and towns in the Philippines, especially in areas close to poor communities, where residents scavenge for junk and leftover food in the garbage heaps.

In July 2000, a huge mound of garbage at a dumpsite in a shantytown in suburban Quezon City in metropolitan Manila collapsed after days of stormy weather and the avalanche also ignited a fire.

The disaster left more than 200 people dead and many more missing, damaged scores of shanties and prompted the enactment of a law, which required the closure of illegal dumpsites and better waste management by authorities.

Haruka Nuga contributed to this report from Bangkok.

Rescuers retrieve a body inside a collapsed waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city, central Philippines on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view of a huge mound of garbage that collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

Relatives and others wait for updates after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

Relatives and others wait for updates after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

Search and rescue operation continues after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

Relatives and others wait for updates after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view after a huge mound of garbage collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view of a huge mound of garbage that collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

An aerial view of a huge mound of garbage that collapsed at a waste segregation facility in Binaliw, Cebu city on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Hernandez)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale overnight attack, officials said Friday, killing at least four people. For only the second time, it used a new ballistic missile that it says flies at 10 times the speed of sound and is unstoppable by air defenses.

The intense barrage and the launching of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile came days after Ukraine and its allies reported major progress toward agreeing on how to defend the country from further Moscow aggression if a peace deal is struck to end Russia’s almost 4-year-old invasion.

Months of U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to stop the fighting, however. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has made significant progress on the terms of a possible peace settlement in negotiations with Washington envoys. But Moscow has given no public signal it is willing to budge from its demands.

The attack also coincides with a new chill in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia condemned the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic. It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled he is on board with a hard-hitting sanctions package meant to economically cripple Moscow.

Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 25 wounded in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, during the overnight attack as apartment buildings were struck.

Those killed included an emergency medical aid worker, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko. Four doctors and one police officer sustained injuries while responding to the ongoing attacks, authorities said.

About half of snowy Kyiv’s apartment buildings — nearly 6,000 — were left without heating amid daytime temperatures of around minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit), Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The water supply was also disrupted.

Municipal services restored power and heating to public facilities, including hospitals and maternity wards, using mobile boiler units, he said

The attack damaged the Qatari Embassy in Kyiv, according to Zelenskyy. He noted that Qatar has played a key role in mediating the exchange of prisoners of war.

He called for a “clear response” from the international community, particularly from the United States, which he said Russia takes seriously.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack was a retaliation to what Moscow said was a Ukrainian drone strike on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence last month. Both Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump have rejected the Russian claim of the attack on Putin’s residence.

Putin has previously said that the Oreshnik streaks to its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and has claimed it is immune to any missile defense system. Several of them used in a conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack, according to Putin, who has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies of Kyiv that allow it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles.

Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.

Russia didn’t say where Oreshnik hit, but Russian media and military bloggers said it targeted a huge underground natural gas storage facility in Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Western military aid flows to Ukraine from a big supply hub in Poland just across the border from Lviv.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it identified debris from a Russian Oreshnik missile in the Lviv area. It was fired from Russia’s Kapustin Yar testing range and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.

Russia first used the Oreshnik missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. Analysts say it affords Russia a new element of psychological warfare, unnerving Ukrainians and intimidating Western countries that supply weaponry to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine would be initiating international action in response to the use of the missile, including an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council and a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council.

“Such a strike close to EU and NATO border is a grave threat to the security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community. We demand strong responses to Russia’s reckless actions,” he said in a post on X.

Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Vatican on Friday, urged the international community to keep pushing for peace and end the suffering in Ukraine.

“Faced with this tragic situation, the Holy See strongly reiterates the pressing need for an immediate ceasefire, and for dialogue motivated by a sincere search for ways leading to peace,” the pontiff told ambassadors to the Vatican from around the world.

Germany rebuked Russia for what it said was an escalation in the war just as Ukraine and Western countries were trying to find compromises to end it.

“These are symbolic threats intended to instil fear, but they are not effective,” German government spokesperson Steffen Meyer said in Berlin, referring to the Oreshnik’s use. “Russia’s behavior in this regard is too transparent.”

In Kyiv, several districts were hit in the attack, according to Tkachenko, the city's military administration chief. In the Desnyanskyi district a drone crashed onto the roof of a multistory building. At another address in the same district the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.

In Dnipro district, parts of a drone damaged a multistory building and a fire broke out.

Dmytro Karpenko's windows were shattered in the attack on Kyiv. When he saw that his neighbor's house was on fire, he rushed out to help him.

“What Russia is doing, of course, shows that they do not want peace. But people really want peace, people are suffering, people are dying," the 45-year old said.

A previous version of this story corrected the style on Andriy Sadoviy to Andrii Sadovyi.

Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A rescue worker tries to put out a fire at a residential building damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A residential building is seen damaged after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

The dead body of a paramedic lies on the ground in front of a residential building damaged by a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A residential building burns after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A residential building is seen damaged after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescue workers put out a fire at a residential building damaged by a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescue workers put out a fire at a residential building damaged by a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

A residential building burns after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)