Mudslide Buries Philippine Village

My wife has family members in this area of the Philippines (Southern Leyte). They also have had mud slides. We have lost contact with my sister-in-law via cell phone.

By PAUL ALEXANDER, Associated Press Writer

MANILA, Philippines - A rain-soaked mountainside disintegrated into a torrent of mud in the eastern Philippines on Friday, swallowing hundreds of houses and an elementary school in sludge three stories high. At least 23 bodies were recovered, but 1,500 people remained missing.

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.

"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."

Two other villages also were inundated, 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."

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Semper Fi