‘A rushing river of debris’

ANAHAWAN, Southern Leyte — A tree trunk saved Florencio Libaton as a flood of mud and debris swept him along. For Irenea Velasco, it was a pool table.

Theirs were among the few tales of survival after a landslide left their farming village of Guinsaugon in nearby Saint Bernard town little more than a memory.

They recounted their tales Sunday at Anahawan District Hospital, where they are recovering after being battered by the mud, boulders and trees that killed most of the village’s 1,800—plus residents two days earlier.

Libaton said he was resting at home when his wife, Porfiria, rushed in, saying: "The mountain has collapsed."

His first thought was his children — a son and two daughters — at the nearby elementary school, but his wife said it was too late. The school, and its 250 to 300 pupils and teachers, had been buried.

He grabbed her by the arm and they ran, he said. The landslide quickly gained on them, rocks and boulders slamming against each other in soupy mud rushing down the slope of the mountain, heading directly for Guinsaugon.

"I said, ‘God, is this how we are going to die?’ " Libaton said.

The roiling debris was too fast. Overwhelmed by the mud, boulders and trees, he lost his grasp on his wife.

Sitting in a hospital bed with a deep cut in his left leg, Libaton motioned with his arms how he rolled, tossed and turned until a tree trunk pinned him against some rocks. He lay on his right side, only his left arm free under about three feet of debris.

The blanket of muck was cracked in front of his face, allowing him to breathe for several hours until he heard voices, including a neighbor, Tohing Siga, who was searching for relatives.

"I yelled out, ‘Help! Help!’ Then they pulled me out after digging with their hands," he said.

Libaton said his four brothers survived but their wives and children are missing and feared dead. He continues to pray that his own children somehow survived, but was not optimistic about his wife’s fate.

Libaton was among 21 people who were rescued with serious injuries in Guinsaugon and brought to the nearest hospital in Anahawan, 25 kilometers (16 miles) away.

Velasco, 59, never let go of a billiard table leg that she grabbed among the flowing debris.

The hardwood tabletop protected her from rocks "as big as cauldrons." The table’s leg, however, landed on her left chest and pinned her in the mud for several hours until she was rescued by residents of a nearby village.

The missing included one of her sons, two daughters—in—law and their five children.

For Alicia Miravalles, the terror began with the ground shaking mildly.

"Moments later I heard a loud explosion, then the sound of many airplanes. I looked up to the mountain and I saw the ground and boulders rushing down," she said.

She said she couldn’t outrun the wall of mud and boulders as she raced across her family’s rice field.

"I thought I was dead," she said. "If the landslide did not stop, I would really be dead now."

Her family’s 1.5—hectare (3.7—acre) rice farm is now a mound of rocks and mud.

"Our farm is gone, we have no more home," her husband, Mario, said. "We can only rely now on the government’s help."

Loreta Marqueda was using a breathing tube. She was so battered by rocks that doctors had to drain blood from her lungs.

Relatives watching TV footage of the disaster recognized her as the woman whose mud—covered faced was being cleaned by rescuers.

She said that the flood of debris scraped away her clothes and that only a thick layer of mud covered her when rescuers found her buried up to her chest.

"Before I was rescued, I looked around and I did not see any houses standing," she said.

Her bedridden father—in—law, a sister who was caring for him and his three sons were gone.