Killer landslide toll: 36, count rising

The latest body count in Friday’s landslide disaster in Southern Leyte continues to rise as rescue workers find more bodies buried in thick mud in what was once known as barangay (village) Guinsaugon in the municipality of Saint Bernard. The National Disaster Coordinating Center (NDCC) in its latest report said 36 bodies have been recovered while 57 people have been rescued from the thick sludge that has swallowed the entire village. An estimated 1,800 residents of the village are believed to have been buried alive when heavy rains caused a mountain side to erode - triggering deadly landslides to rampage through the village. Main roads connecting Saint Bernard to several towns in the province have been rendered impassable due to thick mud and boulders. As this developed, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo called on the Filipino people to unite in compassion for the victims of the massive landslide in Southern Leyte where thousands of residents were feared dead. In her message at the inauguration of the P68-million new Binalonan public market in Pangasinan, Mrs. Arroyo said the Filipinos should set aside whatever differences and unite to pray and support the victims of the tragedy. ''I challenge all Filipinos of all political parties, religious affiliations to unite in compassion for the victims of the tragedy," she said. She also ordered the creation of a multisectoral task force that will investigate the landslide that left hundreds of houses and possibly thousands of people buried in mud in Barangay Guinsaugon, Saint Bernard town in Southern Leyte. ''I am ordering Executive Secretary (Eduardo) Ermita to establish a multisectoral task force to provide a whole investigation and study what the nation needs to take to prevent, if not eliminate, this kind of tragedy from happening again,'' she said. She said the investigation on the tragedy would help the government come up with mitigating and preventive measures to avoid the occurrence of similar incidents in the future. LITTLE HOPE Rescue workers held little hope Saturday of finding more survivors from a devastating landslide that possibly killed more than a thousand people, saying this farming village in the eastern part of the country was swallowed whole by a wall of mud and boulders. The search was focusing on an elementary school amid unconfirmed reports that relatives of the 250 children and teachers had received mobile phone text messages from survivors. Only one girl and a woman had been rescued alive nearby. Many blamed persistent rains and illegal logging for Friday's disaster. The logging "stopped around 10 years ago," Roger Mercado, a member of Congress who represents the area, told GMA 7’s DZBB. "But this is the effect of the logging in the past." Soldiers and rescuers were being shuttled to the disaster zone in the shovels of bulldozers that carried them across a shallow stream. With the mud estimated at 30 feet deep at some points, they were given sketches of the village so they could figure out approximately where the houses once stood. Joining the rescuers is Dionisio Elmosora, a 42-year-old farmer who was looking for his wife and two sons. "What's important is for me to find them even if they're dead," said Elmosora, his eyes bloodshot and his face grief-stricken. "I've not eaten since this thing happened." The landslide left Guinsaugon, which is on the southern part of Leyte island, looking like a giant patch of newly plowed land. Only a few jumbles of corrugated steel sheeting indicate the town ever existed. "Our village is gone, everything was buried in mud," Eugene Pilo, a survivor who lost his family, told local media on Friday. "All the people are gone." "It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," said Dario Libatan, who lost his wife and three children. "I could not see any house standing anymore." A helicopter pilot, Leo Dimaala, estimated that half the mountain had collapsed Friday morning. "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." Aerial TV footage showed a wide swath of mud alongside stretches of green rice paddies at the foothills of the scarred mountain. POOR GOVERNANCE AND CORRUPTION Pat Vendetti, of the Greenpeace environmental action group, said that although logging is illegal in the Philippines, a combination of poor governance and corruption has hampered enforcement of the law. "There were similar landslides at the end of 2004 and the end of 2003, both directly linked to illegal logging on land above villages, and both in the Philippines," said Vendetti. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies blamed a combination of the weather and the type of trees prevalent in the area. "The remote coastal area of southern Leyte ... is heavily forested with coconut trees," the Red Cross said from Geneva. "They have shallow roots, which can be easily dislodged after heavy rains, causing the land to become unstable." Southern Leyte province Gov. Rosette Lerias said many residents evacuated the area last week because of the threat of landslides or flooding, but had started returning home during increasingly sunny days. Even before the landslide, "trees were sliding down upright with the mud," Lerias said. Low clouds hung over the area, obscuring the mountain that disintegrated Friday morning after two weeks of heavy rains, covering the village's 375 homes and elementary school. Rescue workers trudged slowly through the sludge, stretchers and ambulances waiting for survivors or the bodies of victims.-GMANEWS.TV