11-year-old suffered a broken leg but is conscious.
An 11-year-old boy survived a landslide in the Philippines by taking refuge in a refrigerator for a whole day. According to the New York Post, the boy, named CJ Jasme, had been at home with his family when a massive mud landslide inundated their house in Baybay City, Philippines, on Friday. Authorities discovered Jasme lying inside the broken appliance as they conducted a rescue operation in the province of Leyte in the wake of tropical storm Megi.
With mudslide encroaching his home, the quick-thinking 11-year-old hopped in the family refrigerator. He then spent around 20 hours hunkered down inside the appliance in order to shelter himself from the storm. Salvation finally came when the rescue team spotted the refrigerator on a riverbank, whereupon they sent out an SOS as another landslide was inbound.
According to the Post, police officer Jonas Etis informed that the rescue crew then evacuated Jasme. They hoisted the broken appliance out of the mud like a coffin and then transferred the 11-year-old into a makeshift stretcher. The team said that the first words the child spoke to them were, “I'm hungry”.
Jasme was conscious and only miraculously suffered a broken leg during the ordeal. He was subsequently administered first aid and ferried to the hospital, where he underwent an operation for his broken leg.
Currently, the police revealed that the boy is in stable condition. However, they also said that Jasme's family wasn't lucky. His mother and younger sibling are still missing, while his father perished in another landslide that had ravaged his house a day prior. His 13-year-old brother is believed to have escaped the disaster.
Meanwhile, it is to mention that following the storm, nearly 200 villagers have reportedly been injured in Baybay area alone and around 172 people have been killed. More than two million have been displaced, according to the Post. The rescue teams are still struggling with mud and unstable heaps of earth and debris to find the missing people.