THE Philippines was in mourning yesterday after all hope vanished for hundreds of schoolchildren and their mothers who were entombed in their school by a massive mudslide on the island of Leyte.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered that the search and rescue mission must continue in driving rain, but military and civilian emergency teams said that there was no sign of life in the buried village of Guinsaugon.

“Mud is everywhere,” said Virgilio Mortera, the local mayor. Officials put the death toll at up to 1,800. Body parts were sticking out of the mud and the few half-naked survivors had been taken to local hospitals, officials said. One British national was among the dead, according to media reports which named him as Rebur White and said that he was visiting the area with his Filipino wife.

The British embassy in Manila could not immediately confirm the reports.

There was national distress over the loss of the mothers and children at Guinsaugon’s elementary school. It was summed up by the president, who said she was “heartbroken” and called on the country’s devout population to unite in prayer.

The government ordered the evacuation of 11 other villages believed to be at risk, as bad weather brought more landslips and turned whole areas into swamps.

One photojournalist almost drowned in the mud at Guinsaugon yesterday as he sank up to his armpits. He was rescued by a team of soldiers.

By all accounts, the side of Mount Can-abag slipped away and engulfed the village so quickly on Friday morning that nothing could have saved the people in its path. “It sounded like the mountain exploded and the whole thing crumbled,” said Dario Libatera, a witness.

“We did not find any injured people. Most of them are dead and beneath the mud,” Ricky Estela, a helicopter crewman, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper.

Local officials feared that some 2,000 people — including the 200 schoolchildren, their mothers, teachers and headmaster — had been buried. So far, relatively few bodies have been recovered from the morass. Only about 100 people emerged alive in the hours following the disaster.

“The ground has really been soaked because of the rain,” said Rosette Lerias, the governor of Leyte. “The trees were sliding down upright with the mud.”

There had been a small earthquake measuring 2.6 on the Richter scale, she added: “That could have caused the landslide.”

Rene Solidum, director of the Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology, said it was more likely that the heavy rainfall was to blame. Environmentalists and some local politicians also blamed deforestation caused by loggers who have stripped away the terrain’s natural defences.

“This is the product of some 30 years of illegal logging in the area,” said Roger Mercado, a congressman who represents the district in the lower house of the Philippines legislature.

Aware of the political controversy, the government was keen to show it was doing all it could, even in the absence of fresh survivors to be helped.

The Philippines navy dispatched a regional force to Leyte to serve as floating hospitals and command centres; and the US navy diverted a ship taking part in war games in the southern Philippines to assist.

Leyte is no stranger to natural calamities. In November l991 about 6,000 people were killed there by floods and landslides triggered by a tropical storm.

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