AlQa'dah 8, 1436, Aug 23, 2015, SPA -- Typhoon Goni blew out of the northern Philippines on Sunday after leaving at least 15 people dead and several others missing, including a dozen miners whose work camps were buried by a huge mudslide in a mountain village, officials said. According to AP, Goni was last tracked at sea about 430 kilometers (267 miles) northeast of Basco town in Batanes province on the archipelago's northernmost tip. It has sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (105 mph) and was forecast to lash southern Japan within 24 hours, government forecasters said. While approaching the country's mountainous north, Goni dumped heavy rain for three days then battered already-sodden upland villages with fierce winds, triggering landslides, officials said. In the hard-hit mountain province of Benguet, landslides killed at least 12 people, including four gold miners who were pulled out of a huge mudslide that buried three work camps in far-flung Taneg village in Mankayan town. A dozen miners remain missing and more than 100 policemen and fellow miners dug through the muddy heap Sunday amid fading hope that survivors would be found, officials said. Benguet Governor Nestor Fongwan said days of pounding rain and a swollen creek saturated a mountain slope, which cascaded down the gold-mining area at dawn Saturday.
