Burial of mudslide victims begins

RESCUERS began burying victims of a huge mudslide in the Philippines yesterday as hopes of finding more survivors all but evaporated.

Exhausted rescue teams dug through unstable mud at a buried elementary school and village hall where hundreds were trapped inside when a river of mud swept over the farming village of Guinsaugon, killing nearly all its 1,857 inhabitants.

No one had been found alive since Friday, when a mountainside collapsed after weeks of torrential rain on slopes that villagers said were unstable after heavy illegal logging.

With bodies decomposing quickly in the tropical heat, officials ordered the mass burial of 30 unidentified bodies at a cemetery about five miles from the wrecked village.

Officials had said 57 survivors were pulled from the mud Friday, but yesterday lowered the number to 20 without explanation. At least 72 bodies had been recovered, including 14 yesterday.

Volunteers with two rescue dogs digging around the entombed elementary school found no signs that any of the 250 to 300 children and at least six teachers inside were alive.

A group of 32 US Marines joined in the digging at the school after two ships arrived with 1,000 Marines diverted from planned joint exercises with the Philippine military.

About 200 Marines were on the ground by nightfall and hundreds more were expected to come ashore today.

Meanwhile, another landslide killed five people in Zamboanga del Sur province’s Bayog town, 470 miles south of Manila. It was not immediately clear what caused the landslide.