Landslide slams village, 1,500 missing
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-17 15:56

Aerial TV footage showed a wide swath of mud amid stretches of rice paddies at the foothills of the now-scarred mountain, where survivors blamed illegal logging for contributing to the disaster.

This television grab shows rescuers and villagers searching for the victims of a landslide under a huge mass of mud that covered an entire village in the central Philippines island of Leyte. About 200 people were believed killed and 1,500 others were missing in the landslide. [AFP]

Rescue workers dug with shovels for signs of survivors, and put a child on a stretcher, with little more than the girl's eyes showing through a covering of mud.

"Let us all pray for those who perished and were affected by this tragedy," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement.

"Help is on the way," she promised survivors. "You will soon be out of harm's way."

Gordon appealed for U.S. troops, in the country for joint military exercises, to send helicopters to the disaster site.

The U.S. Embassy said a U.S. naval vessel was en route to the disaster area and Philippine disaster officials were being consulted on coordinating chopper deployment.

Volunteers from nearby provinces were quickly being joined by groups of troops being ferried in by helicopter, with more en route by sea.

A woman is surrounded by rescuers after a landslide in Leyte province in this February 17, 2006 video grab. Mudslides triggered by heavy rains buried hundreds of houses and a school in the central Philippines on Friday, killing at least six people and raising fears of a far higher death toll, officials and witnesses said. There were unconfirmed reports at least 200 people could be dead and about 1,500 missing around Saint Bernard town in Leyte province, said Senator Richard Gordon, who also heads the Philippine Red Cross. [Reuters]

Army Capt. Edmund Abella said he and about 30 soldiers from his unit were soaking wet from wading through mud up to their waists. Flash floods also were inundating the area, and the rumble of a secondary landslide sent rescuers scurrying for safety.

"The people said the ground suddenly shook, then a part of the mountain collapsed onto the village," Abella told AP by cell phone. "Some houses were carried by the mudflow, some were destroyed and other were buried.

"It's very difficult, we're digging by hand, the place is so vast and the mud is so thick. When we try to walk, we get stuck in the mud."

He said the troops had just rescued a 43-year-old woman.

"She was crying and looking for her three nephews, but they were nowhere to be found," Abella said.

While the official death toll was only 23, Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias told radio DZBB that 500 houses in Guinsaugon were feared buried after nonstop rains for two weeks.

The elementary school was in session when the landslide struck between 9 and 10 a.m., and about 100 people were visiting the village for a women's group meeting.

"The ground has really been soaked because of the rain," Lerias said of downpours blamed on the La Nina weather phenomenon. "The trees were sliding down upright with the mud."

She said about half a square mile was covered in thick mud that remained unstable.

"Our communication line was cut because our people had to flee because the landslide appeared to be crawling," Lerias said.

Rep. Roger Mercado, who represents Southern Leyte, said the mud covered coconut trees and damaged the national highway leading to the village.

Lerias said many residents evacuated the area last week due to the threat of landslides or flooding, but had started returning home during increasingly sunny days, with the rains limited to evening downpours.

In 1944, the waters off Leyte island became the scene of the biggest naval battle in history, when U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his famed vow "I shall return" and routed Japanese forces occupying the Philippines.

In November 1991, about 6,000 people were killed on Leyte in floods and landslides triggered by a tropical storm. Another 133 people died in floods and mudslides there in December 2003.

Last weekend, seven road construction workers died in a landslide after falling into a 150-foot deep ravine in the mountain town of Sogod on Leyte.