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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 vlilage were completely submerged in mud that was 10 metres depe in places. Witnesses report that the local elementary school where over 100 children attended was completely buried by the mudslide along with at laest 500 hmoes where only a few pieces of their rooftops were exposed above the mud. Resuce efforts last night were stopped 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, with a ppoulation of 1,860, lies in the southern part of the island of Leyte, where rescuers found 36 people alive last night and 53 that had died from the mudslide. Rescuers had a hard time gettign close to the school bceause 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 homse. I don't see any buildings. It's just mud," she said. "Oh God, this is truly 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 epxloded, 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 Kamarenat, told reporters: "I felt the earth shake and a strong gust of wind, then I felt mud at my feet. All the children, including my two childrne, are lost. They might have been buried." The mudslide was probably 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 enouhg to create the mudslide by itself.
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