Philippines facing fresh disaster

The search is being hampered by bad weather

Philippines officials are searching for a missing ferry with more than 70 people on board.

The 63-ton Piary was last heard from on Sunday, when it radioed that it was about to sink in the Sulu Sea.

The alert followed a gruelling weekend, after heavy rain triggered mudslides which are feared to have killed more than 200 people across the country.

The BBC correspondent in Manila says hopes of finding any more people alive in the disaster are fading fast.

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo has asked the US to help in rescue efforts following the landslides, which first hit on Friday and which have been blamed, in part, on illegal logging.

The Philippines civil defence authorities said 214 people were dead or missing.

Bad weather has hampered rescue operations, and the BBC's John McLean says that the focus is switching to the recovery of corpses.

Defence Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that residents in San Francisco on the island of Panaon had been given permission to cover the rubble created by a massive landslide there, converting it into a mass grave.

Around 100,000 people have been displaced by the landslides, and our correspondent says the authorities are struggling to feed and shelter them amid the persistent rain.

Ferry hunt

The coast guard said aircraft had failed to find the Piary and a search and rescue operation was being hampered by strong winds that have brought the torrential rain to the south of the country.

The ferry, which vanished after rough seas smashed a hole in its side, was reported to be carrying 68 passengers.

The Coast Guard said naval reconnaissance aircraft were unable to spot the vessel from its last known location, about 100 km (60 miles) away from Brookes Point on Palawan island.

Ferries are the chief means of transport between remote islands in the western and southern Philippines.

Many vessels are poorly maintained and are not equipped with safety gear, analysts say.

The country has a history of shipping disasters, including the sinking of a ferry near Manila in May, which killed 25.

Flooding

Over the weekend, television showed pictures of desperate efforts by relatives to uncover those missing after the mudslides.

Rescuers described digging up bodies of entire families buried together under the mud.

Landslides in pictures

"This is the worst experience we have had in years", said Rosette Lerias, the governor of southern Leyte province, the worst affected region.

She said cutting down trees from the slopes above settlements had loosened the soil.

Environment Secretary Elisea Gozun said forests had been replaced by coconut plantations in the 1920s and 1930s, and that these do not hold the soil as well as deep-rooted trees.

The municipalities of San Francisco, Liloan and Maasin in southern Leyte have been particularly badly hit, while other casualties were reported in the Agusan and Surigao areas of neighbouring Mindanao island.

An official there quoted survivors as saying they heard a great noise from the mountains, and that shortly afterwards a current of mud swept down on top of them.