1. Almost 2000 people may have lost their lives in a major landslide which has engulfed an entire village in the central Philippines Landslide disaster in the Philippines 17.02.06 VV ‘06

2. The fluid character of the slide means that it is correctly termed a mudslide

3. The Philippines are a group of islands (archipelago) which lie between China and Indonesia in the western Pacific Ocean. Manilla Manilla is the capital city of the Philippines The disaster occurred on the island of Leyte

4. Most of the dead are in the farming community of Guinsaugon in the south of Leyte island In places the mud which engulfed the village and its hundreds of homes is tens of metres deep.

5. Beneath the ‘toe’ of the slide lies a whole village – like the one in the foreground

6. The mud, carrying stones and boulders, completely wiped out the village. Buildings, including a school, were completely buried.

7. In places only the tops of coconut palms stick up through the metres of mud

8. The mudslide also swept flimsy buildings away

9. This woman is one of very few who have pulled alive from the mud The army have been mobilised to help

10. … . but it is mainly bodies which they are pulling from the mud

11. Why did this ‘slide’ happen? In common with many landslides it can be explained by both physical and human factors

15. “ Aid workers in the Philippines failed to find any more survivors on Saturday at the site of a village obliterated by a massive mudslide. “ BBC News Saturday, 18 February 2006, 15:53 GMT