No hope for Philippine mudslide victims

Guinsaugon: Rescuers on Sunday picked through a sea of mud in search of survivors after a massive landslide buried 1,400 Philippine villagers, but officials conceded hope was all but lost.

More than 48 hours after a mountainside collapsed, sending a wall of mud and boulders crashing into the village of Guinsaugon, rescuers roped together for safety hunted in vain for survivors but found only a few bodies in the muck.

"I don't think we can find anybody alive," said Felix Lim, vice-mayor of St Bernard, which includes the now obliterated village.

"The mud is just too deep," he said. "That's the hard truth we have to face."

Health department official Cornelio Solis said: "By this time I don't think so. There is no way they could survive this by now.

"I have been to ground zero, and there is water and mud seeping through."

US Marines arrived at the scene on Sunday and a Malaysian team was on the way, part of an international outpouring of aid and sympathy for the disaster-prone nation. President Gloria Arroyo insisted she had not given up hope.

"All government resources are continuously being exhausted as we continue to hope to find more survivors," she said.

The head of the rescue effort, Major General Bonifacio Ramos, said the soft mud made it impossible to get heavy equipment onto the site, where an entire school with 200 students and 40 teachers was among buildings buried.

"The mud is like quicksand," Ramos said. "We can't move very fast and it's very difficult." In some places the soil was said to be 30 metres (100 feet) thick.

After two weeks of abnormally heavy rain, the mountainside collapsed onto the village in the central island of Leyte on Friday morning, covering an area of nine square kilometers (3.5 square miles) with mud and huge boulders.

Rescue efforts were focused on the presumed site of the elementary school and the village hall, but progress was slow.

"We need special drilling equipment to detect if there is still signs of life underneath," said Ramos. A specialist Taiwan rescue team was due to arrive later.