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Sunday, February 26, 2006
Leyte rescuers end search for survivors
ST. BERNARD, Southern Leyte -- The search for survivors of the devastating landslide in Southern Leyte was called off, with officials conceding Saturday that the at least 973 people still missing are almost certainly dead.
For more than a week, rescuers, including US Marines, Malaysian and Taiwanese teams, had been digging for survivors in the mountain of mud that engulfed the barangay of Guinsaugon on Feb. 17.
Twenty-two people were pulled out alive within hours of the disaster caused by heavy rains, but only corpses were found in succeeding days.
"We have closed the search and rescue phase," said Leyte Governor Rosette Lerias, adding that some 139 bodies had been found and 973 others are "missing... and are presumed dead."
Small chance
"The (rescue) team decided that if there were any air holes, they would have been completely covered already and there would be almost no chance of survival," Lerias said.
"We can't find any more survivors after one week of the tragedy," she said, saying "there are no more signs of life."
Lerias said work will continue to retrieve bodies from the site but the operation will now focus on expanding evacuation centers for villagers who fled the area, fearing more landslides and flash floods.
She said rescue teams will also continue to evacuate people from areas in danger of further natural disasters.
The Taiwanese and Malaysian contingents were withdrawing from the area along with some Filipino rescue teams, Lerias said.
However, other Filipino personnel and the US Marines, who were diverted to Leyte from war games elsewhere in the country, will remain.
Rescuers' efforts had focused on finding an elementary school where over 200 schoolchildren were buried, but the heavy layer of shifting mud had made this extremely difficult.
The rescue teams, using sophisticated "life detector" devices and sniffer dogs, had labored for days to find the school amid unconfirmed reports that people inside were sending cellphone text messages.
Privately, experts said the search was hopeless and that no one could have survived for long under about 30 meters of soil, rock and mud.
The landslip covered an area of some nine square kilometers.
The local government has already ordered the evacuation of five nearby villages due to fears of more landslides.
Memorial service
With candles, flowers and prayers, mourners held a memorial service on Saturday for victims of a massive landslide.
"God, we ask you to give eternal rest to the victims of the landslide," a Roman Catholic priest said during the ceremony, held in an army tent. The tent was the command post for rescue teams, including Philippine soldiers, US Marines, Taiwanese and Malaysian experts with high-tech detection gear, and Spanish handlers with sniffer dogs.
The mourners, many of them villagers who lost their homes in Guinsaugon on Leyte island, sang hymns and held hands. Some women wept, and knelt on the ground in prayer as the priest gave them communion. After the 30-minute ceremony, the grieving villagers walked to a nearby riverbank, tossed flowers into the water and placed white candles in the ground.
US Marines were among those attending and Lerias and other local officials and survivors crossed the river in two earthmovers to bless the disaster site. Priests sprinkled holy water on the ground. Lerias wept, saying she could not hold back the tears whenever she visits the area.
Villager Erlinda Cabanas, 59, also cried. Her husband, daughter, grandson and granddaughter remain missing. Cabanas was visiting a son and a daughter in Manila, the Philippine capital, when the landslide struck, and she recalled speaking to her husband, a coconut farmer, on the telephone a few days before the disaster.
"He said: 'Come home. I feel lonely,"' a distraught Cabanas said. "Now I am crying because when I got home, they were all gone."
She said she hesitated before coming to the service because seeing the devastated village was so emotionally painful. She said she was resigned to the likelihood that the bodies of her relatives would not be found in the swamp of unstable earth.
"It's so huge, how can you find anybody there?" Cabanas said. Despite days of intense digging, recovery teams operating in wet, dangerous conditions did not find any survivors except in the early hours after the landslide.
A priest who lost a sister in the disaster held a separate Mass in the middle of the landslide area. A dozen people attended the service near the site of what used to be the priest's family home. (AP/Sunnex)
(February 26, 2006 issue)
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