WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2006
WORLD
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 7A
Still no survivors after mudslide
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GUINSAUGON, Philippines — Uncertaint if they were even digging in the right place, emergency crews tried to find a mud-swamped elementary school Tuesday as fears grew that time may have run out for rescuing any more survivors of a massive slide.
Most rescue workers left the site a few hours after dark, but a few teams using specialized gear stayed behind to take advantage of the silence to listen for sounds under the mud.
"We have not found any structure to indicate the location of the school," said Joel Son, in charge of a group of miners working at the site. "It's all mud."
Hopes for a miracle have focused on the school largely because of unconfirmed reports that survivors there sent mobile phone text messages to relatives shortly after the landslide hit Friday.
It was another frustrating day, with no one found alive since just hours after a mountainside collapsed in a wall of mud and boulders that swamped the farming village of Guuinsauon on Leyte island. The official death toll rose to 107, but authorities fear it could surpass 1,000.
High-tech gear detected some underground sounds late Monday, creating a buzz of excitement and adrenaline among troops, miners and volunteers whose hopes of finding life had all but vanished.
By Tuesday, the buzz was gone again, replaced by a grim workmanlike attitude.
The U.S. Marines, Philippine troops and technicians from Malaysia and Taiwan had to give up digging at the most promising site because the soft, wet mud kept collapsing.
"As we'd dig deeper, we'd try to dig wider, but with the rain last night ... there were little landslides happening around us," said Lt. Jack Farley, who
They shifted to another spot about 200 yards away.
was heading the Marine contingent. "The soil here is so unstable."
The school is believed to be buried by up to 100 feet of muck, and ground-penetrating radar that is capable of detecting structures up to 50 feet down has come up blank.
With the landscape drastically changed, no one could be sure they were digging at the right place. Some people suggested the school was still on the same spot where it had been built; others said it could have been washed downhill.
"Even the local population has kind of lost their bearings," Farley said. "They don't have those terrain features around to distinguish where something really is."
The threat of more rain-triggered landslides also slowed the search, and it was unclear if the scratching and tapping noises that were heard Monday came from survivors or just ground water or mud settling.
"A few times we heard something, we think we heard something, because we really want to hear something," Farley said. "If there is anything at all, we're gonna go there."
Officials had refused to allow heavy machinery in the disaster zone out of fear it could cause the unstable mud to shift, but with conditions solidifying and shovels making little headway, they brought in a backhoe. It had similar problems with holes that it dug caving in.
Search teams moved carefully, unable to work as fast as they wanted for fear that their movements could set off more landslides.
"Safety is an ongoing concern right now because of the rain," said U.S. Marine Capt. Burrell Parmer, one of hundreds of American servicemen involved in the recovery operation. "So far, no survivors have been recovered. It's a sad deal."
WAR IN IRAQ
Bomb destroys lives, market
BY ROBERT H. REID THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hadi Mizban/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
injured Iraqi woman and a child wait for further treatment in Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad after an explosion Tuesday. A car bomb exploded Tuesday at an outdoor market in a Shiite area of southwestern Baghdad, killing 22 people and injuring 28. police said. It appeared to be the deadliest car bombing against civilians in the capital in weeks.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb exploded Tuesday on a street packed with shoppers in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 22 people and wounding 28, police said. It was the deadliest bomb attack in the Iraqi capital in a month.
Terrified children screamed and several women wailed for their dead, crying, "the terrorists, may God punish them." Shattered bits of fruits and vegetables from vendors' pushcarts lay scattered on the street amid pools of blood.
At least eight other people were killed and more than 30 injured Tuesday in bombings and shootings elsewhere in Baghdad and in attacks on beauty parlors and liquor stores — symbols of Western influence — in Baqouba northeast of the capital.
The car bombing occurred shortly before 5 p.m. in a Shiite corner of Dora, a predominantly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad and one of the most dangerous parts of the city — rocked almost daily by bombings, ambushes and assassinations.
Police Maj, Gen. Mahdi al-Gharawi said the bomb was detonated by remote control and an Iraqi suspected of triggering the device had been arrested. Claims of early arrests in bombing cases often prove premature.
Another policeman, 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq, said the blast apparently was aimed at a police patrol but missed its target, killing and maiming shoppers strolling with their families along a street lined with appliance shops and fruit and vegetable stalls.
The Dora bombing was the second major attack in as many days against a Shilite target in the capital. Twelve people died Monday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt on
It was the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since Jan. 19, when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a coffee shop, killing 22 people and injuring 23.
a bus in the heavily Shiite district of Kazimiyah.
At least 969 Iraqi have been killed in war-related violence this year and at least 986 have been wounded, according to an Associated Press count.
However, large-scale attacks against civilians have declined in recent weeks amid widespread public criticism, including from Sunnis clerics and others sympathetic to the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
Some Sunni insurgent groups are believed to be holding back to give Sunni Arab politicians a chance to negotiate concessions from Shiites and Kurds during talks on a new government.
U. S. officials believe a government capable of winning the trust of all communities is essential so the United States can hand over more security responsibility to the Iraqis and begin sending the 138,000 American troops home this year.
On Tuesday, Mohammed al-Askari, a Defense Ministry spokesman, confirmed that Iraqi soldiers had detained 18 policemen who had seized two men for unknown reasons.
Al-Askari added that one of the men who were held captive by the 18 was a police officer from the mostly Shiite southern city of Kut.
The Interior Ministry has denied running or sanctioning death squads. On Thursday, however, the ministry announced an investigation into alleged death squads after U.S. military officials announced the arrest last month of 22 policemen who were about to kill a Sunni Arab north of Baghdad.
Also Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw lent his voice to international calls for a broad-based government.
"It is a crucial moment today for the people of Iraq," Straw told reporters after meeting President Jalal Talabani. "The international community, particularly those of us who played a part in liberating Iraq, obviously have an interest in a prosperous and stable and democratic Iraq."
Straw's comments followed a blunt warning Monday by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khailizad that Iraqi risk losing international support if key ministries end up in the hands of politicians with ties to militias.
"We are not going to invest the resources of the American people and build forces that are run by people who are sectarian" and tied to the militias, Khalilzad said.
A coalition of Shiite Muslim religious parties won 130 of the 275 seats in the new parliament, and Shiite leaders insist their strong showing in the election gives them the right to control key ministries.
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