Up 1,500 people feared dead in Philippines mudslides

A woman is surrounded by rescuers after a landslide in Leyte province in the Philippines. (Photo: Reuters)

A woman is surrounded by rescuers after a landslide in Leyte province in the Philippines. (Photo: Reuters)

A rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated in a wall of mud and boulders today that swallowed hundreds of houses and a school in the eastern Philippines .

The death toll was at least 23, and 1,500 people were missing and feared dead.

The farming village of Guinsaugon on Leyte island, 420 miles south-east of Manila, was virtually wiped out, with only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting left to show that the community of some 2,500 people ever existed.

"There are no signs of life, no rooftops, no nothing," Southern Leyte province Governor Rosette Lerias said.

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Two other villages also were affected, and about 3,000 evacuees were at a municipal hall.

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.

A small earthquake also shook the area, but scientists said it occurred after the landslide and likely was unrelated.

Flash floods also were inundating the area, and the rumble of a secondary landslide sent rescuers scurrying for safety.

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.

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

"It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," survivor Dario Libatan told Manila radio DZMM.

"I could not see any house standing anymore."

Education officials said 250 students and teachers were believed to have been there.

Senator Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, issued the casualty estimates and appealed for international aid. Lerias asked for people to dig by hand, saying the mud was too soft for heavy equipment.

Only 53 were extricated from the brown morass before dark halted rescue efforts for the night. "I have a glimmer of hope, based on the rule of thumb - within 24 hours you can still find survivors," Lerias said.

"After that, you move on to the recovery phase, but right now it's still rescue mode."

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