Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje said he and other officials discovered the 230-feet (70-meter) long fissure on a mountain slope above Kingking village during an aerial survey. A portion of the mountain slope along the crack collapsed after a downpour Friday and buried several shanties below, leaving at least five dead and 17 missing.

Army troops, police and fellow miners resumed a search for the missing Sunday amid sagging hopes that any more survivor could be pulled out from about 100 feet (30 meters) of mud, rocks and debris that buried several shanties, bunkhouses and tents of illegal gold miners in Kingking near Pantukan town in Compostela Valley province, officials said.

About 13 people have been dug out from the muck since Friday.

The unstable land along two-thirds of the deep fissure could collapse with the next heavy rain and bury about 30 shanties and bunkhouses still inhabited by gold-miners in Kingking, Paje said.

“It’s really critical,” Paje told The Associated Press by telephone from Pantukan. “That mountain slope is highly susceptible to another landslide.” Paje, who was accompanied by Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin in the aerial survey, said they would discuss with provincial, the military and police officials in Compostela Valley how the gold miners could be evacuated immediately out of harm’s way.

Despite the danger, hundreds of impoverished villagers have dug for gold in narrow dangerous shafts in far-flung villages like Kingking for years. Many have ignored warnings and defied occasional government crackdowns on illegal mining by the undermanned military and police.

“They tell us they would rather die in a disaster than die of hunger,” said Pantukan Mayor Celso Sarenas.

Paje said he and other Cabinet members were under orders from President Benigno Aquino III to take steps to prevent more deaths in the gold-mining region, which has been hit by deadly accidents in the past.

“The government has the power to carry out a forced evacuation when the danger is really high,” Paje said.

Friday’s landslide covered at least 2.5 acres (one hectare) of Kingking and buried more than a dozen shanties, bunkhouses and tents, where gold-miners stayed, some with their families, police said.

A similar landslide killed 26 people in a Pantukan village in 2009, police said.