1 800 feared dead in Philippines landslide

GUINSAUGON – Philippine villagers began to bury their dead in a mass grave yesterday as rescuers pulled only corpses from an entombed community of 1 800 crushed under metres of mud by a landslide.

“They are being buried as we speak, 50 of them, all in the one grave,” Rosette Lerias, governor of Southern Leyte province in the central Philippines, told Reuters. Two days after the landslide, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said mass graves, peppered with lime powder, were necessary to prevent disease spreading in the hot, fetid conditions.”Some bodies are so bloated, they are in such a state of decomposition.But they are being buried in such a way that they can be exhumed later,” Duque told Reuters.Rescue workers battled deep, shifting mud and recurring rain in a despairing search for 253 schoolchildren and staff buried after the elementary school in Guinsaugon, a village about 675 km southeast of Manila, was engulfed in Friday’s mudslide.Unconfirmed reports that some of the pupils had sent desperate text messages initially boosted the emergency services but as light faded yesterday, so had all hope.By early evening, 68 bodies had been extricated from the reddish soil and a further 941 villagers were unaccounted for, a spokeswoman for the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.- Nampa-ReutersTwo days after the landslide, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said mass graves, peppered with lime powder, were necessary to prevent disease spreading in the hot, fetid conditions.”Some bodies are so bloated, they are in such a state of decomposition.But they are being buried in such a way that they can be exhumed later,” Duque told Reuters.Rescue workers battled deep, shifting mud and recurring rain in a despairing search for 253 schoolchildren and staff buried after the elementary school in Guinsaugon, a village about 675 km southeast of Manila, was engulfed in Friday’s mudslide.Unconfirmed reports that some of the pupils had sent desperate text messages initially boosted the emergency services but as light faded yesterday, so had all hope.By early evening, 68 bodies had been extricated from the reddish soil and a further 941 villagers were unaccounted for, a spokeswoman for the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.- Nampa-Reuters