MONKAYO, Mindanao — Police said 4 people died and 5 are missing after water flooded a mine in a mountainous gold rush town in the Southern Philippines.
Provincial police commander Senior Superintendent Albert Ferro said rescuers lowered tubes to pump water out of the mine in the impoverished town of Monkayo during the search for the missing.
It was not immediately clear how the tunnel became flooded early Sunday but there was heavy rain in the area at the time.
A rescuer drowned on Sunday while trying to save those trapped.
Deadly landslides are common in Monkayo in the west of the main southern island of Mindanao. But these have not deterred poor residents, some of them children, from working in the poorly-regulated mines.
