Philippines Landslide Deaths May Top 1,500 - Yahoo! News

Philippines Landslide Deaths May Top 1,500 - Yahoo! News:

MANILA, Philippines - A wall of mud and boulders swept down from a mountainside at terrifying speed Friday, burying an eastern Philippines farming village in up to 30 feet of sludge. Officials feared the death toll could climb past 1,500.

The landslide left Guinsaugon — once a community of 2,500 people and an elementary school — looking like a giant patch of newly plowed land. Only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting indicate Guinsaugon ever existed.

Rescue workers were hampered by the thick, soft mud that remained unstable, along with flash floods spawned by two weeks of downpours that dumped 27 inches of rain. Survivors and others blamed the weather and illegal logging for contributing to the disaster.

The official death toll stood at 23 after darkness forced suspension of rescue efforts, hours after the morning landslide. But the Philippine Red Cross estimated at least 200 dead and 1,500 missing. Significantly, only 53 survivors were plucked from the brown morass on Leyte island, about 400 miles east of the capital, Manila.

Guinsaugon's 375 homes had disappeared.

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