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The Philippines suffered another national disaster which could have killed hundreds if not thousands when a devastating landslide buried alive a whole village in southern Leyte province in the central Visayas region.

 

This took place less than two weeks after a deadly stampede killed about 70 people waiting to join a popular game show outside a stadium east to Manila on February 4. This tragedy was regarded by many here as a small-scale national disaster.

 

Officials said a whole elementary school with some 240 school children studying inside was buried along with 372 houses sheltering from 2,000 to 3,000 people at ordinary times, when the village Guinsaugon in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte was suddenly wiped out of landscape by tons of mud and rocks.

 

Few of the witnesses said it came all of a sudden and in a few minutes with the sound of a huge explosion the entire village was gone!

 

Thirty-three bodies have been found and 58 survivors recovered from the disaster site, which looked like a huge burial ground covered with black and grey earth.

 

Apparently shocked and wearing a black sports jacket when she appeared on television, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo vowed to help the victims of the landslide, whose number stood at around 1,500 according to some officials, while some others estimate the figure at as high as 3,000.

 

"Help is coming!" she said. "The full resources of the government are being harnessed to bring the biggest possible rescue and relief resources in the fastest way possible. Help is on the way."

 

Arroyo said rescue and relief operations would come by sea, land and air in a massive and coordinated effort to help the victims at the fastest possible time.

 

She also ordered the Coast Guard to dispatch naval cutters to Southern Leyte and the whole naval force in the Visayas to provide all possible assistance to the victims, with two navy ships being dispatched and hospitals and relief centers being established to "save lives".

 

Officials said the next 24 hours after the disaster took place are crucial for the survival of those buried under thick and wet mud and rocks. But rescue operation was suspended late afternoon due to fear of a new landslide on the disaster site.

 

The landslide took place after nearly two weeks of heavy rain in eastern Visayas region in central Philippines. A weather phenomenon called "La Nina" was blamed for the heavy rainfalls.

 

Moreover, the mountains overlooking the doomed village have already had its forest badly destroyed by heavy logging, said officials.

 

The Philippine National Red Cross said other landslides are likely in Visayas and Mindanao region, where deforestation is also threatening residents living beside mountains under the current LaNina weather expected to last till May. It asked residents near mountains in South Leyte to evacuate immediately.

 

Rescuers said they badly need equipment and sniff dogs, as wellas medical kits, rubber boots, blankets and bottled water. Some equipment got stuck in the mud and could not work any more, said officials.

 

To make things worse, sanitarian condition is expected to deteriorate when the dead under the mud begin to rot.

 

The International Red Cross, the United States Navy and Japanese government have all promised to help in the rescue operation.

 

However, officials are still holding hope that people under the mud could survive for 24 hours as is stated in scientific theory.

 

But the chances are becoming smaller and smaller for those buried under the mud to survive as time is ticking away with rescue operation being suspended until dawn break.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2006)