On unstable ground
U.S. Marines dig through mud and rocks during search-and-rescue efforts in the Philippines today. A massive landslide buried the farming village of Guinsaugon Friday. The search was slowed by heavy rains, the threat of more landslides and the uncertainty of where to dig. Rescue workers had focused their digging Monday at where they thought an elementary school covered by mud was located. Reports of underground sounds had fed hope for finding survivors. But ground-penetrating radar, capable of mapping structures up to 50 feet deep, found nothing. Volunteers had been digging at two sites where it was estimated the school, filled with hundreds of children, might have been carried. The confirmed death tool stands at 93, with about 1,000 missing and feared dead.
