A landslide set off by a burst septic tank following days of torrential rain killed at least 57 people in a slum area of Bombay, emergency services said yesterday.
Rescue workers dug through the rocks, mud and sludge, searching for victims in pouring rain nearly 24 hours after the disaster struck.
"The death toll is 57, and at least 30 to 40 bodies could still be trapped under the debris," a fire officer said.
The disaster is believed to have happened when the septic tank of a public lavatory on top of a hill burst on Wednesday, fracturing the hillside above the shanties in the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar.
More than 200 hovels were buried under an avalanche of rock, mud and sewage.
"We don't have much hope of finding survivors as the wet mud would have smothered them," a fire brigade official said.
Rescuers had begun using powerful excavators to scoop out the rocks, stones and mud, resigning themselves to looking for bodies rather than survivors.
The authorities were also making plans to spray the area to stop the spread of disease from decomposing bodies and raw sewage.
The incessant rains of the past week have killed more than 80 people in India's western state of Maharashtra, of which Bombay is the capital.
Weather department officials said 350 mm (13.8 in) of rain had fallen on the city in the previous 24 hours and they forecast more heavy rains and strong winds.
Landslides and building collapses are common in Bombay during the four-month monsoon season as a large number of the city's population of more than 12 million live in slums.
On Wednesday three people died when the ceiling of their home collapsed in Vikhroli and two were washed down a storm water drain.
Twelve young boys were drowned last weekend in a tragedy which began with a search for a lost cricket ball in the rough seas at Gorai beach in northern Bombay.
The Press Trust of India reported seven more casualties, including five in the pilgrimage town of Nashik, in the heaviest spell of rains since the monsoon arrived in early June.
Yesterday's downpour paralysed the city. Roads and rail tracks were under water and office workers and school children stayed at home. The markets in India's financial capital were quiet as few people managed to get to work.
Reuters reports from Manila:
Philippine rescue teams braved the threat of infection and a thunderstorm yesterday to try to reach about 150 people believed trapped under a mountain of garbage in a Manila shanty town but found no more bodies.
At least 137 bodies have been recovered in the three days since an avalanche of rubbish demolished more than 200 shanties on Monday.
Officials said no bodies were found during the day and it would be a miracle if anyone was still alive. They said they expected to keep working for another week.
"Rescue operations slowed because of the rain," Red Cross officer Ms Tessie Usapdin said. "The mud is getting softer so it's difficult for rescuers. The smell is also getting bad.
"Every two hours we have to change shifts so that our people can rest and wash their bodies with disinfectants."
Nearby, on a canopied basketball court serving as a temporary morgue, other workers sprayed chemicals over decomposing bodies to smother the stench.
The disaster has prompted President Joseph Estrada's government to speed up plans to close rubbish dumps around the capital and to build a new one in an outlying province.
Manila has opened bidding for the construction of a new landfill.
The dump site has been the home of about 80,000 slumdwellers for two decades, a grim symbol of the widespread poverty in the country.
About 80 per cent of the slum-dwellers hike up the rubbish mountain to forage for items, from broken appliances to smashed plastic toys, which they sell to junk shops. They earn about 200 pesos ($4.50) a day.