PHILIPPINES: Volunteers with two sniffer dogs dug around a mud-covered elementary school yesterday, but found no signs that any of the 250 to 300 children and teachers inside were still alive two days after a massive landslide.
Weary search teams recovered another 14 bodies from Guinsaugon, a farming village where up to 1,800 people died when they were buried in mud up to 9m (30ft) deep on Friday. Five people were killed in a landslide elsewhere in the Philippines.
The hunt for survivors focused on the school, following unconfirmed reports that some of those inside sent text messages to loved ones after an adjacent mountain collapsed following two weeks of heavy rains.
Ian Degamo, with an aid group called Maayo, was digging there with about 15 other volunteers aided by two sniffer dogs from the Red Cross. "The dogs smelled something. We started to dig, but there was nothing," Mr Degamo said dejectedly.
A damage-assessment team of up to 30 US Marines based in Okinawa, Japan, visited Guinsaugon. They joined the search around the school, vowing to dig through the night with flashlights.
They were part of a 1,000-strong Marine contingent on the USS Essex and the USS Harper's Ferry who arrived recently for joint military exercises and were diverted at the Philippines' request.
The confirmed death toll was 72 yesterday, but hopes of finding survivors were fading quickly in Guinsaugon.
With entire families wiped out in Guinsaugon, officials held a mass burial for 50 unidentified bodies that were decomposing quickly in the tropical conditions.
Under a light drizzle, a Catholic priest sprinkled holy water on the bodies, some wrapped in bags, others in cheap wooden coffins, then said a prayer. Volunteers lowered the bodies to men who placed them side by side at the bottom of the grave.
Philippine Lieut Col Raul Farnacio said searchers were focusing on the buried elementary school, but that teams using police search dogs also were digging around the village hall, where about 300 people had been attending a women's conference.
Rescue workers treaded carefully to avoid becoming casualties themselves as the uneasy mud settled.
A no-fly zone was established over the disaster area out of fears that powerful downwinds from helicopters could dislodge the mud. Rescue workers shouted and banged on boulders with stones in hopes that survivors would hear. There was only silence. Officials said 57 people were plucked alive from the mud on Friday, but lowered the figure yesterday to 20. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
In Geneva, the International Red Cross appealed for two million Swiss francs (€1.3 million) to buy temporary shelter materials and other emergency health and cooking items.
Many residents of the landslide area were evacuated last week because of the threat of landslides or flooding following heavy rains, but they had started returning home when the days turned sunny.