1,500 Feared Killed By Mudslide in Philippines

More than 1,500 people are feared dead after a wall of mud cascaded down a mountain and buried their village on the central Philippine island of Leyte yesterday morning.

Television footage confirmed the accounts of rescuers and survivors that virtually the whole of Guinsaugon in south Leyte was buried by the landslide. A few tin roofs and bits of mangled debris, some of which had been carried hundreds of meters, were visible above the sludge.

Officials said it would be a few days before the death toll was known because the village had been evacuated a week ago after warnings of an imminent landslide and it was not known how many people had returned.

The disaster is being blamed on two weeks of heavy rain and the replacement of the deep-rooted hillside forests with coconut plantations, which have shallower roots.

Illegal logging is rampant across much of the Philippines, but it is unclear whether the clearances in this area were carried out illegally.

By dusk, when the combined rescue team of military personnel, Red Cross staff, government officials and volunteers from neighboring communities stopped work, 23 bodies had been recovered. About 50 people have been accounted for.

Some 3,000 people from nearby villages spent last night in municipal buildings in the nearby town of St Bernard as heavy rain continued to lash the region.

The provincial governor, Rosette Lerias, said 1,875 people lived in Guinsaugon, which covers an area of about one square kilometer (250 acres), and another 1,150 nearby. "I’m really afraid the death toll is going to be very high," she told the Guardian. "There are no homes left. It is a tragedy and we can’t do much because even the rescuers’ lives are in danger."

Relief efforts were hampered by continuing heavy rain, landslides and very soft mud which caused rescuers to sink up to their chests.

"The troops pulled out because big boulders are cascading down the mountain," said Colonel Raul Farnacio, who is in charge of the military’s relief operations.

Captain Edmund Abella, part of the relief operation, said that the search was extremely treacherous.

"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.

Raul Garganera, the manager of the Red Cross disaster management centre in the capital, Manila, said that sniffer dogs would be sent to the scene because heavy equipment was difficult to use.

Almost 250 children and staff in the village primary school, which vanished, are thought to be among the dead. "Rescuers found only one child and one adult alive in the mud in that part of the village," said Ms Lerias.

Survivors said they could not do anything to stop the disaster, which struck at about 10am. "It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," Dario Libatan told radio station DZMM. "I could not see any house standing any more."

Didita Kamarenta told Reuters: "I felt the earth shake and a strong gust of wind, then I felt mud at my feet. All the children, including my two children, are lost. They might have been buried."

The president, Gloria Arroyo, said in a national television address that she was mobilizing "the full resources of the government" to help with the relief effort. "They will come from land, sea and air," she said. "Hopefully you will soon be out of harm’s way."

Local people reported an earthquake just before the landslide, but experts said that its magnitude of 2.9 was too small to have triggered the landslide alone.

Deadly landslides are not uncommon on Leyte island. In 1991 more than 5,000 people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by a typhoon.

Some 133 people died in similar circumstances in 1993.