1,500 Missing In Philippines Mudslide

A rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated in an unstoppable wall of mud Friday, burying hundreds of houses and an elementary school in the eastern Philippines. At least 23 were confirmed dead, and at least 1,500 others are missing.

"It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," survivor Dario Libatan told Manila radio DZMM. "I could not see any house standing anymore."

The U.S. Embassy said a U.S. naval vessel was en route to the farming village of Guinsaugon on Leyte island, 420 miles southeast of Manila. The village was wiped out, with only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting left to show that the community of some 2,500 people ever existed.

Two other villages also were affected, and about 3,000 evacuees were at a municipal hall.

"We did not find injured people," said Ricky Estela, a crewman on a helicopter that flew a politician to the scene. "Most of them are dead and beneath the mud."

The mud was so deep, up to 30 feet in some places, and unstable that rescue workers had difficulty approaching the elementary school, which was in session, CBS News correspondent Gaby Tabunar reports. Education officials said 200 students, six teachers and the principal were believed to have been there.

Sen. Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, issued the casualty estimates and made an international appeal for aid. The provincial governor asked for people to dig by hand, saying the mud was too soft for heavy equipment.

"We are sending over three relief teams from other islands," Gordon tells CBS Radio News. "(But) the town is buried in floods and there are mud slides along the way so it's kind of difficult to get there," Gordon says.

There appeared to be little hope for finding many survivors, and only about three dozen were extricated from the brown morass before dark halted rescue efforts for the night, officials said.

"It was like the whole village was wiped out," said air force spokesman Lt. Col. Restituto Padilla.

Aerial TV footage showed a wide swath of mud amid stretches of rice paddies at the foothills of the now-scarred mountain, where survivors blamed illegal logging for contributing to the disaster.

Rescue workers dug with shovels for signs of survivors, and put a child on a stretcher, with little more than the girl's eyes showing through a covering of mud.

"Let us all pray for those who perished and were affected by this tragedy," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement.

"Help is on the way," she promised survivors. "You will soon be out of harm's way."

Gordon appealed for U.S. troops, in the country for joint military exercises, to send helicopters to the disaster site. A U.S. military spokesman, Capt. Dennis Palmer, said American forces were ready to help as soon as they receive an official request.

Volunteers from nearby provinces were quickly being joined by groups of troops being ferried in by helicopter, with more en route by sea.

Army Capt. Edmund Abella said he and about 30 soldiers from his unit were soaking wet from wading through mud up to their waists. Flash floods also were inundating the area, and the rumble of a secondary landslide sent rescuers scurrying for safety.

"The people said the ground suddenly shook, then a part of the mountain collapsed onto the village," Abella told AP by cell phone. "Some houses were carried by the mudflow, some were destroyed and other were buried.

"It's very difficult, we're digging by hand, the place is so vast and the mud is so thick. When we try to walk, we get stuck in the mud."

He said the troops had just rescued a 43-year-old woman.

"She was crying and looking for her three nephews, but they were nowhere to be found," Abella said.

While the official death toll was only 18, Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias told radio DZBB that 500 houses in Guinsaugon were feared buried after nonstop rains for two weeks.

The elementary school was in session when the landslide struck between 9 and 10 a.m. (0100-0200 GMT), and about 100 people were visiting the village for a women's group meeting.

"The ground has really been soaked because of the rain," Lerias said of downpours blamed on the La Nina weather phenomenon. "The trees were sliding down upright with the mud."

She said an area about 0.4 square mile was covered in thick mud that remained unstable.

"Our communication line was cut because our people had to flee because the landslide appeared to be crawling," Lerias said.

Rep. Roger Mercado, who represents Southern Leyte, said the mud covered coconut trees and damaged the national highway leading to the village.

Lerias said many residents evacuated the area last week due to the threat of landslides or flooding, but had started returning home during increasingly sunny days, with the rains limited to evening downpours.

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.

In November 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 December 2003.

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.