Rescuers battle mud in search for Philippine children

By Bobby Ranoco

GUINSAUGON, Philippines (Reuters) – Rescue workers launched
a last-ditch search on Sunday for schoolchildren trapped in mud
following a landslide in the central Philippines that officials
fear has wiped out a village of 1,800 people.

Unconfirmed reports that some of the 253 children and staff
at the elementary school in Guinsaugon, a remote farming
community, had sent desperate text messages on Friday, the day
the mud engulfed the village, drove the emergency services on.

But so far no survivors have been found and with rescue
efforts continually hampered by rain, deep, shifting mud and an
unstable mountainside, hope was stretched thin.

“This is one of the last chances we have,” Rosette Lerias,
governor of Southern Leyte province, told Reuters.

“The reports of the text messages, you’d like to believe
them and hope that they are true because it’s the only
inspiration that keeps us going.”

Hundreds of rescue workers, backed up by U.S. marines
despatched from annual Philippine military exercises, were
warned to tread gingerly in the soft mud or risk drowning.

Further rain was forecast for Sunday and a no-fly zone was
established over the area to prevent blasts of air from the
helicopters’ rotors pushing the mud back over Guinsaugon, a
village about 675 km (420 miles) southeast of Manila.

“It’s like quick sand,” Adriano Fuego, Director of the
Office of Civil Defense, told Reuters.

Only 57 survivors and at least 50 bodies have been pulled
from the reddish soil, which entombed the village after two
weeks of continual rains triggered a landslide on Friday
morning.

Apart from some iron sheeting, other debris and a lone hut,
there was little evidence a village once stood and
firefighters, volunteers and soldiers had to rely on sketches
from survivors to pinpoint where the school and other buildings
once stood.

“It’s a total disaster, just horrendous,” Lieutenant Joel
Coots, a medical officer with the U.S. marines, told Reuters.

“It’s eerily quiet at the moment. It’s very difficult to
get to the site because there is just acres and acres of mud
and debris.”

Two U.S. military ships with 17 helicopters and nearly
1,000 soldiers were expected to arrive later today.

The government and international agencies were sending
water, medicine and other supplies by air and sea, but many of
the relief goods must be trucked to the devastated area on bad
roads and around washed-out bridges after weeks of steady rain.

The Philippines is hit by about 20 typhoons each year, with
residents and environmental groups often blaming illegal
logging or mining for making natural disasters worse.

A series of storms in late 2004 left about 1,800 people
dead or presumed dead northeast of Manila. On Leyte island in
1991, more than 5,000 died in floods triggered by a typhoon.

Many residents of the landslide area had been evacuated
earlier this month because of flood warnings but returned to
their homes when there was a break in the rains.