Mudslide buries houses in Philippine south, 8 dead

MANILA (Reuters) - Rescue workers pulled eight bodies buried under tonnes of mud after days of monsoon rains loosened soil and buried about 20 makeshift houses near a mining town in the southern Philippines, an army spokesman said on Sunday.

Major Armand Rico said dozens of soldiers, police officers, miners and volunteers continued to dig under debris of destroyed homes and mud to search for 10 people still missing after the landslide hit Compostela Valley on Mindanao island on Saturday.

"Our boys had found eight bodies and rescued 17 people from collapsed makeshift houses," Rico told reporters. "More than a hundred people had been evacuated to safer grounds due to shaky ground. Our people are battling against weather and time."

Rico said there was another mudslide early Sunday in the same area, covering the only mountain road leading to the stricken village in Maco town.

"We're sending two helicopters to help in evacuating victims to hospitals," he said, adding soldiers from an army battalion stationed had been ordered to help in the rescue efforts.

Disaster officials had ordered residents to leave the shanty towns near the gold-rush area due to the threat of another landslide and flooding in low-lying areas.

Landslides and flash floods are common in the disaster-prone Philippines during the monsoon months between May and October, particularly near mining areas, low-lying and coastal areas.

In February 2006, more than a thousand people died when days of monsoon rain eroded a denuded forested mountain on the central island of Leyte, burying an entire village, including a school where most of the people had sought refuge.

The country's worst disaster also happened on the same island in November 1991 when 5,000 people were swept to the sea by flash floods brought by monsoon rains.

(Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Bill Tarrant)