Philippines Mudslide Wipes Out Village

A rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated in a wall of mud and boulders Friday that swallowed hundreds of houses and an elementary school in the eastern Philippines. The death toll was at least 23, and 1,500 people were missing and feared dead.

"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 farming village of Guinsaugon on Leyte island, 420 miles southeast of Manila, was virtually wiped out, with only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting left to show that the community of some 2,500 people ever existed.

"There are no signs of life, no rooftops, no nothing," Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias said.

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 school. Education officials said 250 students and teachers were believed to have been there, CBS News correspondent Gaby Tabunar reports.

Sen. Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, issued the casualty estimates and appealed for international aid. Lerias 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 told 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."

Only 53 were extricated from the brown morass before dark halted rescue efforts for the night.

"I have a glimmer of hope, based on the rule of thumb, within 24 hours you can still find survivors," Lerias said. "After that, you move on to the recovery phase, but right now it's still rescue mode."

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.

A small earthquake also shook the area, but scientists said it occurred after the landslide and likely was unrelated. Flash floods also were inundating the area, and the rumble of a secondary landslide sent rescuers scurrying for safety.

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.

"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.

The U.S. military on Friday dispatched at least two warships and other forces to the scene, officials said.

The U.S. also is sending money requested by the Philippine government to help pay for search and rescue operations, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. He did not say how much would be sent. The international Red Cross launched an emergency appeal to countries for $1.5 million to be used for buying temporary shelter materials and other emergency health and cooking items.

"We will continue to coordinate our response efforts with the government of the Philippines and look for ways to best support them in this hour of need," Duffy told reporters traveling on Air Force One to Florida with President Bush.

Mr. Bush was informed by aides about the mudslide Friday morning.

"The United States expresses our sincere condolences to the people of the Philippines for the loss of the life and the suffering of other victims, family members and loved ones," Duffy said. "We hope and pray that ongoing search and rescue operations will help save as many lives as possible."

Volunteers from nearby provinces were quickly being joined by groups of troops ferried in by helicopter.

Army Capt. Edmund Abella said he and about 30 soldiers were wading through waist-deep mud.

"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 23, Lerias said 375 houses in Guinsaugon were feared buried after two weeks of heavy rains for two weeks blamed on the La Nina weather phenomenon.

"The trees were sliding down upright with the mud," Lerias said.

The elementary school was in session when the landslide struck between 9 and 10 a.m. (3-4 a.m. EST), and about 100 people were visiting the village for a women's group meeting.

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.