But the storm illustrated both the resilience of a country that is habitually devastated by natural disasters — floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons — and the dangers people are forced to face to survive.

The allure of gold

Mr. Feliciano started working the mines at 15. He faked his age, a common practice, he said.

For two weeks at a time, he would work day and night, relieved only by five-hour breaks. One of his jobs was binding together up to 20 sticks of dynamite to shatter the hard rock.

Then he would light the fuse.

“It’s not difficult to do — as long as you run,” he said.

His uncle never had that chance.

Typhoon Mangkhut lashed the Philippines with intense rain and gusts up to 170 miles per hour. The soil that came loose from a mountain scarred by decades of mine-tunneling gathered intensity, pouring down on the shelters in which the miners and some of their family members were trying to ride out the storm.

Among those trapped by the earth were Noel, Jocelyn, Jay-e and Baby Ann Sta. Ana, along with a cousin of Mr. Feliciano’s, Alkine Buocan.

Also presumed dead was Edwin Banawol, the pastor of an evangelical Christian church located in the mining encampment. Mr. Banawol, who was living at the mine with his wife and two small children, was the leader of a group of small-scale prospectors who worked the mine.