Mudslide Rescuers Keep Hopes Alive

Rescue workers today refused to give up hope of finding survivors at a school in the central Philippines which was buried under 35 meters of mud during a landslide three days ago.

The search continued into the night under lights powered by generators after rescuers including US Marines and teams from Malaysia and Taiwan detected noises from beneath the mud and rubble at the school in the farming village of Guinsaugon.

Nobody has been pulled out alive since a few hours after part of a mountain collapsed on the village on Friday morning. But the provincial governor, Rosette Lerias, said the chances of finding people alive had increased when US and Malaysian rescuers picked up the sounds of scratching and rhythmic tapping with sound detection devices.

"To me, that’s more than enough reason to smile and be happy. The adrenaline is high...now that we have seen increasing signs of life," Ms Lerias said.

A spokesman for the US military said marines digging at the site had found bodies, but no survivors. Captain Burrell Parmer denied earlier reports in a statement to a US news channel by an interior minister that 50 people had been pulled alive from the rubble.

After speaking to the commander of the US forces at the site, he said: "I asked had they received or found any type of survivors and the answer was no."

The search for survivors has focused on the school because of unconfirmed reports that some of around 200 children and seven staff thought to be buried there may have sent text messages to relatives from their mobile phones soon after the disaster on Friday.

It was unclear whether the sounds picked up by rescuers were made by survivors or by the movement of the unstable mud and rubble covering the school.

After the sounds were detected, US Marine Lt Richard Neikirk said: "We know there’s something down there. The farther down we went, the signals grew stronger."

Sahar Yunos from the Malaysian rescue team which also picked up the noises said: "We have a sound. Knocking, something like that."

Philippine officials originally feared that 1,800 people, almost the entire population of the village, had died. A government official said today that 82 people were confirmed dead and 928 missing. Official figures of how many survivors were pulled from the mud on Friday range from 20 to 57.