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CJ Cregg
Commodore
Joined: 05 Oct 2002
Posts: 1254
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 Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:11 am Mud wipes out Philippines village |
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| Quote: | Mud wipes out Philippines village
An entire village has been buried by a major landslide in the central Philippines following heavy rains.
Nineteen people are known to have died and 83 have been found alive so far, but rescue officials said between 1,500 and 2,500 might be buried in the mud.
President Gloria Arroyo ordered the coast guard and navy to the affected area, and a US vessel is on the way.
However rescuers, struggling waist-deep through thick mud, have called off their search, fearing further slides.
A school and an estimated 500 houses in the village of Guinsaugon, in the town of St Bernard on the southern part of Leyte, were swamped by the flow of mud.
The landslide followed reports of a minor earthquake in the area on Friday morning.
Survivor Dario Libatan said: "It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled."
Another spoke of boulders bigger than a house sweeping into the village amid the torrent of mud and earth.
Television images showed only coconut trees and a few tin roofs emerging from the reddish soil.
"Everything was buried," survivor Eugene Pilo said.
"All the people are gone."
Rescuers sinking
The mudslide happened after heavy rains dumped about 200cm of rain on the area in the space of 10 days, Eva Tomol, a board member for the Southern Leyte provincial government told the BBC News website.
She denied that deforestation caused by illegal logging may have contributed to the disaster.
The BBC's Sarah Toms in Manila says the area lies in the path of several typhoons each year, and that coconut trees common locally have shallow roots which leave it vulnerable to landslides.
Southern Leyte province Governor Rosette Lerias said many residents had left last week, fearing landslides, but had begun to return as rains eased in the past few days.
She said the school that was buried had about 250 pupils and teachers.
"We have been able to rescue only one child and one adult from the school area," she said.
US offer
Army Captain Edmund Abella, leading a team of 30 army rescuers, said his soldiers were sinking into the mud. "It's very difficult, we're digging by hand, the place is so vast and the mud is so thick," he said.
President Arroyo urged her compatriots to "pray for those who perished and were affected by this tragedy".
"I have ordered the Coast Guard and our entire naval force in the Visayas [central Philippines] region to the area," she said in a television address to the nation.
Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, speaking in Geneva, said it would be some time before the final death toll was known.
"This could rise to tragic proportions. We're still hoping this is not the case... It's impossible to predict what nature will do." |
How terrible! I hope they rescue more of the people 
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madlilnerd
Duchess of Dancemat
Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 5885
Location: Slough, England
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| Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:03 pm |
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| Quote: | | She denied that deforestation caused by illegal logging may have contributed to the disaster. |
Wait... I thought landslides happen because people thoughtlessly cut down trees. Without trees, there's nothing to hold the mud together when the rain comes down.
| Quote: | | Coconut trees common locally have shallow roots which leave it vulnerable to landslides. |
Surely there must have been something holding the mountain together in previous years (like trees), other wise there would be no mud mountain in the first place, because the yearly typhoons would have eradicated it years ago? 
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borgslayer
Rear Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2003
Posts: 2646
Location: Las Vegas
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| Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:50 pm |
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In the country most of the vegetation now a days are bushes and shrubs. Most of the trees seen except on the rain forest are Coconut Trees, which are occasionally cut down to make way for coconut wood. The wood is commonly used around the country as a basis for furniture making.
The reason so many deadly mudslides occur.
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