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Students among 16 dead in Malaysia

AAP

AAP

Five Singaporean primary school students and a teacher are among 16 people confirmed killed by an earthquake that rocked Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu.

Malaysian officials said the death toll from the earthquake that struck on Friday morning had risen to 16, with three more bodies recovered.

Three more people remain missing.

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The Singaporean students were part of a school excursion to the popular climbing destination, which was jolted by a 6.0-magnitude quake just as the 4095-metre-high peak was crowded with hikers.

The tremor triggered thunderous landslides that obliterated sections of trails on the mountain, located in the state of Sabah on Borneo island.

Malaysian officials have released few details on the identities of the victims, but Singapore’s Education Ministry confirmed the deaths of the 12- and 13-year-old students and one teacher.

“We are deeply saddened to inform that the bodies recovered by the Malaysian authorities have been identified by their next of kin as five students and one teacher from Tanjong Katong Primary School,” it said in a statement.

It said a Singaporean adventure guide who accompanied the school group also died and one other student and a teacher remain missing.

Masidi Manjun, tourism minister for Sabah state, said on Twitter that search teams were focusing on a section of the mountain where he said a “river of stones” had left a major trail impassable.

AAP: Malaysia Information Ministry of Sabah

Malaysian mountain guides carry an injured Singaporean student off Mt Kinabalu. Photo: AAP: Malaysia Information Ministry of Sabah

Mohammad Farhan Lee Abdullah, police chief of the town of Ranau near the mountain, said body parts had been found on sections of the mountain, suggesting the awesome power of the landslides.

It was not immediately clear whether the body parts were from corpses already found or were from the three still missing.

“They are in parts probably because of rocks and boulders falling on them, but we need to do forensics first,” Mohammad Farhan said.

The local Kinabalu Today news portal quoted rescue personnel as saying that full recovery of remains could be impossible as some were pinned under massive boulders or possibly swept to their deaths from the peak.

Rescuers on Saturday had escorted down to safety 137 hikers who were stuck on the mountain for up to 18 hours by the rockfalls.

Crews and officials engaged in search and rescue efforts have been kept on edge by aftershocks, including a Saturday afternoon tremor that Malaysian officials rated at 4.5-magnitude.

More tremors were felt in the area on Sunday.

Mount Kinabalu is sacred to the local Kadazan Dusun tribe.

Malaysian social media users and some officials have suggested the quake was a sign tribal spirits were angry after a group of 10 apparently Western men and women tourists last weekend snapped nude photos at the summit and posted them on the internet.

-AAP

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