Hope Fades After Philippines Landslide
The village of Guinsaugon disappeared on Friday. And so did nearly every man, woman and child who lived in this eastern Philippines farming community of 1,857 people.
Only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting, sticking up from 30 feet of sludge, indicate Guinsaugon ever existed.
Officials said Saturday that the death toll had reached 56.
Rescue workers held little hope Saturday of finding more survivors from a devastating landslide that sent a wall of mud and boulders tumbling down the mountain at a terrifying speed.
"No one alive has been found today, only the dead," said Joselito Rabi, a provincial social worker.
Lt. Col. Raul Farnacio, the highest-ranking military officer at the scene, estimated the death toll at about 1,800.
"We presume that more or less that 1,800 are feared dead," a grim Farnacio said as search efforts resumed Saturday in a drenching rain and high winds that made the task even more miserable.
Only 57 survivors have been found, none so far Saturday, out of a population of 1,857. At least 24 bodies have been pulled from the mud, and a child who was rescued died overnight from head injuries.
It is likely to take weeks before the extent of the death toll from this landslide is known, CBS News correspondent Barry Peterson reports.
Watch Petersen's description of the scene.
The search was focusing on an elementary school amid unconfirmed reports that relatives of the 250 children and teachers had received mobile phone text messages from survivors. Farnacio said he dispatched about 60 men to the site, but hours later, there was no sign of life.
Earlier, a girl and a woman had been rescued alive nearby.
In other news, the 117,000-strong Philippine police force was put on full alert nationwide due to a new coup plot against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and planned protests by groups seeking her ouster, a police official said Saturday.
The red-alert status went into force Friday night, requiring at least two-thirds of police personnel to be on standby, said police spokesman Senior Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao Jr.
On Saturday, 11 villages in the same area were evacuated out of fear of further landslides. Guinsaugon, on the southern part of Leyte island, which has been swamped with 27 inches of rain over the last two weeks.
The U.S. military dispatched two U.S. warships, the USS Harpers Ferry and the USS Essex, and 1,000 Marines to the area.
Many blamed persistent rains and illegal logging in Guinsaugon, about 400 miles east of the capital, Manila.
The logging "stopped around 10 years ago," Roger Mercado, a member of Congress who represents the area, told Manila radio station DZBB. "But this is the effect of the logging in the past."
Soldiers were being shuttled to the disaster zone in the shovels of bulldozers that carried them across a shallow stream. They were given sketches of the village so they could figure out approximately where the houses used to be.
Farnacio said the troops were digging only where they saw clear evidence of bodies because of the danger that the soft, unstable mud could shift and claim new victims.
Low clouds hung over the area, obscuring the mountain that disintegrated Friday morning after two weeks of heavy rains, covering the village's 375 homes and elementary school. Rescue workers trudged slowly through the sludge, stretchers and ambulances waiting for survivors or the bodies of victims.
Joining them was Dionisio Elmosora, a 42-year-old farmer who was looking for his wife and two sons.
"What's important is for me to find them even if they're dead," said Elmosora, his eyes bloodshot and his face grief-stricken. "I've not eaten since this thing happened."
The landslide left Guinsaugon looking like a giant patch of newly plowed land. Only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting indicate Guinsaugon ever existed.
"It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," Dario Libatan, who lost his wife and three children, told DZMM. "I could not see any house standing anymore."
Aerial TV footage showed a wide swath of mud alongside stretches of green rice paddies at the foothills of the scarred mountain.
Pat Vendetti, of the Greenpeace environmental action group, said although logging is illegal in the Philippines, a combination of poor governance and corruption has hampered enforcement of the law.
"There were similar landslides at the end of 2004 and the end of 2003, both directly linked to illegal logging on land above villages, and both in the Philippines," said Vendetti.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies blamed a combination of the weather and the type of trees prevalent in the area.
"The remote coastal area of southern Leyte ... is heavily forested with coconut trees," the Red Cross said from Geneva. "They have shallow roots, which can be easily dislodged after heavy rains, causing the land to become unstable."
Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias said many residents evacuated the area last week because of the threat of landslides or flooding, but had started returning home during increasingly sunny days, with the rains limited to evening downpours.
"Help is on the way," President Arroyo said in televised remarks. "It will come from land, sea and air."
The international Red Cross launched an emergency appeal for $1.5 million for relief operations.
The United States also is sending money requested by the Philippine government for search and rescue, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. He did not say how much would be sent.
Last weekend, seven road construction workers died in a landslide after falling into a 150-foot deep ravine in the mountain town of Sogod on Leyte.
In 1991, about 6,000 people were killed on Leyte in floods and landslides triggered by a tropical storm. Another 133 people died in floods and mudslides there in 2003.
In 1944, the waters off Leyte island became the scene of the biggest naval battle in history, when U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his famed vow "I shall return" and routed Japanese forces occupying the Philippines.