Rescuers roped together for safety picked their way through a sea of mud yesterday in search of some 1,400 Philippine villagers buried by a massive landslide, but hopes for survivors were fading 48 hours after the tragedy.
"The mud is like quicksand. It is very deep and you have to be very careful," said Major General Bonifacio Ramos, who is heading the rescue effort in the stricken farming village of Guinsaugon.
"We can't move very fast and it's very difficult to bring in advanced heavy equipment because it may just get sucked into the mud," he said.
Ramos said he had not yet given up hope, but no one has been pulled out alive since Friday. Desperate text messages from a school, which was buried along with 200 pupils and 40 teachers, stopped coming on Friday evening.
US Marines arrived yesterday and a Malaysian team was due later in the day -- part of a major international outpouring of aid and sympathy for the disaster-prone nation.
After two weeks of abnormally heavy rain, an entire mountainside collapsed onto the village in the central island of Leyte on Friday morning, covering an area of 9km2 with mud and boulders.
Rescue efforts were focused on the presumed site of the elementary school and the village hall, but progress was slow.
"Careful with your footing, that area is very deep, very deep," one rescuer shouted at a group of local volunteers, one of whom was sucked waist-deep into the muck before being freed.
"We need special drilling equipment to detect if there is [are] still signs of life underneath," Ramos said. "The ground is very soft and we need all the help we can get."
A specialist Taiwanese rescue team was due to arrive later.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council said 65 bodies had been recovered and 20 people were rescued injured from the scene; 410 people who were away from the village at the time also survived.
About 1,400 remain missing based on the latest population estimate for Guinsaugon, although some local officials put the figure much higher.
The bodies of 29 unidentified victims were to be buried in a mass grave yesterday for health reasons. Some lay in crude plywood coffins or black body bags after the nearby town of St Bernard ran out of proper coffins.
"All government resources are continuously being exhausted, as we continue to hope to find more survivors," said President Gloria Arroyo, whose government came under fire from green groups over the tragedy.
The government "conveniently blames Mother Nature," said Clemente Bautista, coordinator of green group Kalikasan-People's Network for the Environment.
"The deaths in the landslide ... last Friday morning could have been prevented if the government acted early on," Bautista said.
Arroyo has warned that the Philippines could face more landslides amid forecasts of further heavy rain and promised to help threatened areas adopt safety precautions.
A 50-strong contingent of US Marines arrived late on Saturday from Japan, and some inspected the village yesterday to assess needs.
"This is total devastation, it's just acres and acres of mud and rock and that is all you see," Lieutenant Joel Coots said.
Two US landing craft have been sent to the island with relief supplies while two US helicopters delivered supplies to St Bernard.
Malaysia was sending a 72-man military medical contingent late yesterday. Numerous other nations and organizations have pledged cash or other aid.
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