Only 57 people out of 1,857 survived the mudslide
Posted on 02/18/2006 4:56:34 PM PST by Termite_Commander
A frantic teacher and her terrified pupils sent text messages to relatives stating that they were trapped after their school disappeared under a huge mudslide in the Philippines.
"We're still in one room, alive," read the message from the teacher to her mother, Pamela Tiempo. One of the pupils wrote: "We are alive. Dig us out."
But the messages stopped on Friday evening, hours after the mudslide, leading rescue workers to conclude that the school had become a tomb for everyone inside, with those who sent the messages probably suffocating.
Only 57 people, out of a population of 1,857, were saved from the village of Guinsaugon on the island of Leyte, 420 miles south east of Manila. At least 55 bodies had been recovered by last night. A child who was rescued died of head injuries.
The plight of the children in the school, which recalled the Aberfan disaster of 1966, in which 116 schoolchildren and five teachers died when a waste tip engulfed a South Wales mining village, briefly gave rescuers hope that some lives could be saved.
At an emergency briefing yesterday, President Gloria Arroyo said: "Someone has received a text message from the head teacher, who is alive."
Lt Col Raul Parnasio, whose men were on top of the 250-pupil primary school, which was buried underneath at least 30 feet of mud, said: "Some people told us several of the children are still sending text messages on their mobile phones."
By nightfall yesterday, however, disaster relief workers, hampered by the lack of specialised equipment and in constant danger of being sucked into the mire themselves, were forced to conclude that no one had survived.
"It breaks my heart to think of those precious schoolchildren whose innocence and hope have been so tragically snuffed out," Mrs Arroyo said in a statement. It is thought that only two children, sent out of the village on errands for their parents, were spared.
Rescuers sunk up to their waste in the reddish, viscous mud as they pulled out body after body using shovels and sometimes their bare hands. Stretchers were hauled across the mud using ropes to prevent the bodies sliding away.
"The problem is that we cannot bring in heavy equipment because of the mud," said Rosette Lerias, the governor of Southern Leyte province. Even if there had been heavy equipment available, it is doubtful it could have been used effectively and safely.
Only the tops of a few roofs indicated that there was a village, with 375 homes and the school, buried as suddenly as Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79.
The only warning of the mudslide was a large bang that witnesses said sounded like a thunder clap. Many villagers had left Guinsaugon a few days earlier after 20 people were killed in minor landslides in the area but returned when the rain stopped and the sun appeared.
Even as the last rescue attempts continued, officials had begun to assess what caused the disaster and whether it could have been prevented.
Some blamed illegal logging and deforestation, which have been common in the Philippines in recent decades. But Leyte gets hit by about 20 typhoons a year and there were reports of a small earthquake during the 10 days of rains that preceded the mudslide.
Eulogio Dala, a district official, said: "They're not finding anyone alive any more.
"We had 30 villages before, now we only have 29. One was removed from the map."
those who sent the messages probably suffocating.
All they had to do is dig an airhole.
This is terrible. :-(
How sad...
Thanks for the report.
What a chilling report. An entire school buried alive...and slowly dying.
God help them all.
I don't think that would have been possible. You'd first need to drill 30 down in this mud, and also manage to get the airhole into the one room that people were holed up in.
If they brought in a machine to drill down, there's also the risk of it getting stuck in the mud and just getting in the way of rescue efforts. It might even collapse the school's roof below.
Their batteries may be down. Praying for them.
What a terrible tragedy.
Prayers for these poor souls.
Same thought here - the batteries would be going down, but the people may still be alive. I pray for a miracle...
Instead of hoping on outside help, they'd have been better served by helping themselves.
Also if you consider the poor construction standards most likely prevalent in the region how could a schoolhouse survive intact buried under rubble and mud from such a massive event?
Again I pray for those lost and their surviving families, but something is not right with this account.
Sounds bogus to me. I have the same experience.
You can't use a phone inside a concrete building half the time.
That's probably due to the rebar rods in the concrete, not the thickness. Radio waves would go right through dirt if it doesn't have a high iron content.
You're blaming them for not trying to dig from the bottom of thirty feet of mud so liquid that it has flowed hundreds of feet? Ok, let's hear how they should do it.
I could be wrong (and maybe some of our scientists could chime in on this) but I think a cell signal could possibly go thru mud. I think that if you were surrounded by steel, like in a parking structure where the concrete is reinforced with a steel interior frame, that might be a different thing. But mud is not steel.
The armies of two nations are starting to start trying to dig down to that school. Maybe you could offer them your expertise.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1582168/posts
Mostly this is a self-ping to your comment, which I'm upgrading to stupidest post of 2006.
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