Rescuers pull bodies from Philippine school

A Filipino villager waits for news of his loved ones buried in the mud in the village of Guinsaugon. Picture / Reuters

GUINSAUGON, Philippines - Rescue workers pulled five bodies today from a Philippine school buried under a mudslide, dashing reports of a miraculous recovery of 50 people three days after their village was obliterated.

"We have yet to find any survivors," Captain Burrell Parmer, a spokesman for US Marines taking part in the rescue operation, told the ABS-CBN television channel.

"Our troops have found dead bodies," he said. "They dig with their bare hands and place them in body bags."

Parmer's sombre news contradicted an earlier report from a Philippine government official that US forces had brought out about 50 survivors from under metres of mud in the school in Guinsaugon, a remote farming community about 675km southeast of Manila.

Last week's devastating landslide, triggered by two weeks of heavy rain, obliterated the village of 1800 people. So far, 84 bodies have been recovered. Relatives have reported 1371 people still missing.

But rescuers, including US Marines dispatched from annual Philippine military exercises, focused efforts on the elementary school after unconfirmed reports that some of the 253 people trapped inside had sent desperate text messages on Friday.

Rosette Lerias, governor of Southern Leyte province, said some rescuers would work through the night after she said scratching sounds were detected at the school site.

"We intend to go overnight. We don't intend to stop, not when you have increasing signs of life."

Colonel Raul Farnacio, head of a Philippine army rescue team, said US and Filipino military had halted operations because geologists had warned that the ground around the school was unstable. Rain was sheeting down.

Farnacio said the likelihood that some of those trapped in the school could be alive had risen, "from one per cent to 50 per cent" after rhythmic sounds were detected.

Rescuers, including teams from Taiwan and Malaysia, are battling deep, shifting mud and have been told to tread softly for fear of drowning in the soupy earth.

In hospital, survivors told of jumping from roofs to escape the torrent of mud. One six-year-old girl survived by clinging to a coconut tree.

Bloated and decomposing, 50 recovered bodies were buried yesterday in mass graves sprinkled with holy water and lime powder -- a measure Health Secretary Francisco Duque said was necessary to prevent disease from spreading in the hot, fetid conditions.

Former first lady Imelda Marcos told the anti-graft court today she had cancelled her plan to go to Hong Kong to seek alternative medicine for her ailing knees and would instead go to Guinsaugon tomorrow.

"The Leyte people are a priority over my health," the widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos said, adding that she intended to donate to the survivors the 630,000 pesos ($18,083) that she had deposited with the court as travel bond.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo plans to visit the scene on Thursday or Friday.

About 500 US troops have rushed to Guinsaugon. Brigadier-General Mastin Robeson said Washington planned to divert to Leyte up to 3000 of the 5000 US, soldiers and sailors taking part in annual war games in the southern Philippines.

The Philippines is usually hit by about 20 typhoons each year, with residents and environmental groups often blaming illegal logging or mining for compounding the damage.

But in a country where most of the 86 million people are Roman Catholic, commentators, officials and even survivors also said the landslide was God's will.

Leyte island itself is no stranger to disaster. In 1991, more than 5000 people died in floods triggered by a typhoon.

- REUTERS