After that you move on to the recovery phase but right now it’s still rescue mode

“After that, you move on to the recovery phase, but right now it’s still rescue mode.”But hopes for finding more survivors are bleak. “We did not find injured people,” Ricky Estela, a crewman on a helicopter that flew a politician to the scene, said. “Most of them are dead, beneath the mud.”A large part of the mountain, Mt Guinsaugon, has collapsed. They may have been buried.”Governor Lerias called for volunteers to help dig by hand, saying the mud was too unstable to use heavy equipment. “I have a glimmer of hope, based on the rule of thumb that within 24 hours you can still find survivors,” she said. “Oh God, this is truly tragic.” President Gloria Arroyo told survivors last night: “Help is on the way.

You will soon be out of harm’s way.”The mudslide struck without warning just before 10am local time (2am GMT) yesterday. “It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled,” a survivor, Dario Libatan, said. “I could not see any house standing anymore.”Another survivor, Didita Kamarenta, said: “I felt the earth shake and a strong gust of wind, then I felt mud at my feet All the children, including my two children, are lost. The rest are missing.Among them were about 100 visitors who were in the village for a women’s group meeting. Rescue workers could not get close to the school because the mud was so deep and unstable.The governor, Rosette Lerias, broke down as she described the scene on television “I don’t see any homes I don’t see any buildings It’s just mud,” she said. Rescuers had worked all day, digging in chest-deep mud.The official death toll last night was 53. But 1,860 people lived in Guinsaugon and only 36 survivors were found Fifteen bodies were recovered from the mud.

Television showed just a few pieces of metal roofing poking through the mud.
Relief efforts had to be called off as fresh mudslides brought boulders crashing down the mountain that overlooks Guinsaugon, in the southern part of the island of Leyte. More than 1,500 people are feared dead in the Philippines after a catastrophic mudslide buried a village. Reports said the mud submerging the community of Guinsaugon was 10 metres deep in places

The primary school was packed with children It has vanished More than 500 houses were buried. The debate within Israel on the issue has been sharpened by the first sparring in the campaign running up to elections on March 28. Mushir al-Masri, an incoming Hamas legislator, said he expected a compromise between the faction and Mr Abbas which would lead to the formation of a Palestinian Cabinet.. The right-wing Likud party, under Benjamin Netanyahu, is agitating for the toughest possible stance against Hamas.Mr Haniyeh said the group’s supporters would weather what he called Israel’s “policies of oppression and collective punishment”.

They have to say this publicly and in writing.” Mr Rdeneh said it was too early to say what action Mr Abbas would take if Hamas refused to adopt his programme.Israeli officials said Mr Olmert, leader of the new Kadima party, would ponder over the weekend what sanctions to recommend to his Cabinet. “We’re waiting to see what happens tomorrow in Ramallah,” he said.It was not fully clear yesterday how far Mr Abbas will go today towards insisting that Hamas abide by the conditions laid down by Israel and the international community for contacts and funding for the PA.In a reference to the outgoing administration’s pursuit of a two-state solution, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a senior presidential aide, declared: “Any new government should be a continuation of the previous government. The new PLC members will be sworn in and addressed by the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas.The only firm decision taken at yesterday’s meeting was to continue the bar on newly elected Hamas parliamentarians based in Gaza — who include the likely new Prime Minister, Ismael Haniyeh — from travelling to Ramallah for today’s meeting. The proceedings in both centres will therefore be linked by video conferencing facilities.Israel has already indicated that it is not intending to remit to the PA the next $50m monthly tranche of duties it collects on the authority’s behalf, although officials said that a final decision on this may not be taken until the end of the month.The most draconian proposals are being canvassed by the Defence Ministry and include measures to isolate Gaza further by halting the modest flow of workers allowed to enter Israel and halt the passage of all but vital supplies through the main Karni cargo crossing.Mark Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Israel was now in “watch and wait mode” to see what positions Hamas would take today after the swearing-in. The acting Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, put off until then a decision on a series of options put to him yesterday by officials and ministers for what could amount to a virtual diplomatic and economic blockade of a Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA).
The measures are designed to increase the difficulties faced by an incoming Hamas administration unless the faction reverses its previous stances by recognising Israel, renouncing violence and agreeing to honour previous agreements between the old PA and Israel.Dov Wesiglass, a senior Prime Ministerial adviser, has already been quoted in Israeli media as saying the government intends “to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to starve them”.But amid some European and American pressure not to inflict fresh and premature hardship on the Palestinian public itself, yesterday’s meeting agreed to delay a decision until at least after today’s meeting of the new Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

Israel will consider whether to impose a tough new series of restrictions on Palestinians tomorrow in the wake of today’s meeting at which Hamas will assume majority control of the new Palestinian parliament. There were no reports of Italians inside being injured, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.Mr Simoes-Concalves said that riot police had tried to prevent protesters from entering the ground of the building by firing tear gas but had failed and that some had then opened fire as the assault grew violent.Italy’s ambassador to Libya in Tripoli met late yesterday with the Libyan interior minister “who expressed the condemnation of his government for the acts of violence occurring in Benghazi,” the Italian Foreign Ministry said.Yesterday, riots continued to erupt in Muslim countries around the world – still fuelled by the anger about the 12 cartoons of the Prophet MohamedIn Tanzania 10,000 people took part in a peaceful march through the capital Dar es Salaam, although some demonstrators carried placards reading, “We must kill those that insult Prophet Mohammed”There have also been violent demonstrations in Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Afghanistan and several other Muslim countries, leaving at least a dozen people dead.A Pakistani cleric, Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, announced a $1m (570,000) bounty for the killing of the cartoonist who drew the offending caricatures.However, he did not name the cartoonist and seemed to be unaware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures.He said: “This is a unanimous decision by all imams of Islam that whoever insults the Prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end will get this prize.”Muslims in the Gulf region have also recently intensified their boycott of Danish goods as the uproar raged on.. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has called for his resignation.The protests started at about 5pm Libyan time yesterday and continued for several hours. They haven’t managed to block the protesters from here.According to some reports, the rioters had also been upset by recent remarks, deemed to be anti-Islamic, by the Italian minister Roberto Calderoli.Mr Calderoli, of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, said that he would start wearing a T-shirt bearing the controversial cartoons, which were first printed by a Danish newspaper.