Philippine crash kills scientists

A military helicopter has crashed into a hill in the northern Philippines, killing at least six people.

Four government scientists and a senior governor from the Red Cross were among the dead, officials have said.

The helicopter was inspecting an area near Gabaldon town in Nueva Ecija province, which was hit by flash floods and landslides late last year.

More than 400 people are thought to have died in the disaster, and thousands more lost their homes.

The reason for the crash has not been confirmed.

"We don't want to speculate on the cause of the accident, though we are not discounting the [possibility] that there could have been... environmental reasons that caused the crash," said Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Restituto Padilla.

Storms and landslides late last year killed hundreds of people

Senator Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Red Cross in the Philippines, said that the helicopter came down while on a mission to conduct an aerial inspection of a planned resettlement site for landslide victims.

Among those killed were four scientists from the Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology as well as their former boss, Raymundo Punongbayan.

According to the French news agency AFP, Mr Punongbayan was one of the country's top seismologists. After his retirement be became a governor for the Red Cross.