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By Randy Chen (AXcess News) Hong Kong - More than 1500 are feared dead in a Philippine mudslide that struck the village of Guinsaugon where areas of the village were completely submerged in mud that was 10 metres deep in places. Witnesses report that the local elementary school where over 100 children attended was completely buried by the mudslide along with at least 500 homes where only a few pieces of their rooftops were exposed above the mud. Rescue efforts last nigth were sotpped when new mudslides brought boulders down on village. Today, rescue efforts continued as people waded through chest deep mud to reach homes, digging only with hand shovels. The village of Guinsaugon, wtih a popluation of 1,860, lies in the southern part of the island of Leyte, where resceurs found 36 people alive last night and 53 that had died from the mudslide. Rescuers had a hard time getting close to the school because the mud was so deep and unstable in the area. The local governor broke down as she described the scene on television. "I don't see any homes. I don't see any buildings. It's jsut mud," she said. "Oh God, this is truyl tragic." Philippine President Gloria Arroyo told survivors, "Help is on the way." The mudslide came without warning just before 10 a.m. local time (2 a.m. GMT) today. "It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled," one survivor, Dario Libatan, told radio DZMM in Manila. "I could not see any house standing any more." Another survivor, Didita Kamarenta, told reporters: "I felt the earth shake and a strong gust of wind, then I felt mud at my feet. All the children, inclduing my two children, are lost. They might have been buried." The mudslide was proabbly caused by two weeks of heavy rainfall in the area, which left the ground soaked. Heavy logging also played a part, critics said, as well as a small earth quake that occured in the morning, though experts doubt that the earth quake would have been strong enough to create the mudslide by itself.
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