Aid workers in the Philippines are struggling to find any more survivors after a huge landslide on Leyte island.

Heavy rain sent a torrent of earth, mud and rocks down on the village of Guinsaugon. A relief official says 1,800 people are feared dead.

Only a few dozen were pulled out of the mud alive on Friday.

The US has sent two ships and a UN disaster assessment team is on its way. Another 11 villages in the area have been evacuated.

President Gloria Arroyo has said that people should be braced for "the prospect of more landslides."

Hundreds of homes and a school full of children were feared destroyed when a mountainside collapsed on the remote coastal village of Guinsaugon after several days of rain.

Workers are armed with shovels and metal stretchers. Diggers cannot get through because of the deep mud, our correspondent says.

The rescue workers are looking for up to 200 children who may be trapped in an elementary school, but rescuers are not optimistic about the hopes of finding anyone alive.

Search efforts have been further hampered by blocked roads, collapsed bridges and severed communication lines.

'All gone'

Two US warships - the USS Essex and the USS Harper's Ferry - are due to reach Southern Leyte at daybreak on Sunday, said US charge d'affaires Paul Jones.

He said the US had given 100,000 US dollar worth of disaster equipment.

The Red Cross has despatched a plane carrying basic supplies and body bags.

It has launched an appeal for money to help survivors with tents, blankets, medicines and other supplies.

"We are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst," Philippine National Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said.

"I'm still hoping we can get some of these people out alive."

A rescue worker told the BBC News website teams had hauled bodies and traumatised survivors from mud, which was waist-deep in parts of the devastated area.

"Everything was buried," survivor Eugene Pilo said. "All the people are gone."

Officials said the mudslide happened after about 200cm of rain (79 inches) fell in the area in the space of 10 days.

Eva Tomol, a board member for the Southern Leyte provincial government, denied that deforestation caused by illegal logging could have contributed to the disaster.

Correspondents say the area lies in the path of several typhoons each year, and that coconut trees - which are common locally - have shallow roots which leave the soil vulnerable to landslides.

Governor Lerias said many residents had left last week, fearing landslides, but had begun to return as rains eased in the past few days.

PHOTO CAPTION

The body of a child is loaded onto a payloader after being dug out from the mud in continuing search and rescue efforts Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 following a landslide that buried the whole village of Guinsaugon in southern Leyte province in central Philippines. (AP)

BBC