Landslides rescue gets U.S. help
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A villager lights candles in tribute on the grave of one of the victims.
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Heavy rains have created mudslides, killing scores in the southern Philippines.
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MANILA, Philippines -- The United States has offered military transport helicopters to assist rescue efforts after landslides devastated parts of the central and southern Philippines.
At least 89 people have been killed and 23 listed as injured, Gen. Melchor Rosales, executive director of the National Disaster Coordination Center, told CNN on Monday.
But 125 people are still missing and feared dead from the torrents of mud, rocks and dirt, he added.
Blocked roads, downed power and telephone lines have hindered rescue crews who have been battling rain and mud with shovels and bare hands in the search for survivors.
The landslides were triggered by six days of pounding rains and winds in six provinces near the Pacific Ocean late Friday to early Saturday with the majority of the casualties and missing in the southern Leyte province. Mindanao island was also hit hard.
Rosales told CNN that rescue crews had reached all of the affected areas and were awaiting U.S. Chinook military helicopters to assist efforts.
CNN producer Marga Ortigas said that a lack of equipment was hampering rescuers and blocked roads in some areas had delayed the arrival of rescue teams.
Leyte Gov. Rosette Lerias returned from a wrecked village in the San Francisco coastal area late Sunday and told CNN she had seen a depressing sight of rivers of mud and bodies piling up.
She described to journalists the mountainside village of 360 people, called Punta, as a scene of mayhem, with more than half of its 83 houses destroyed or buried under mounds of debris and coconut trees.
She told The Associated Press: "There was mud all over. You couldn't see anything but rooftops with the houses submerged in mud. There's debris, wood, old clothes, kitchen utensils strewn all around.
"The rescuers were using heavy equipment, and in one spot they dug up the hand of a child."
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A mudslide survivor, speaks to a reporter after being trapped in the mud in central Philippines.
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Some have blamed years of illegal logging for the landslides, but Lerias told CNN that logging was not to blame and this was a coconut growing area. Water had just rushed down the hillsides through crevices, she said.
However President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said most of the affected areas were near overlogged hills and mountains and urged officials to encourage forestation that could hold the soil better on steep slopes near villages.
Rosales blamed days of continued rain for the landslides but told CNN "we have to investigate allegations of illegal logging."
Soldiers, police and volunteers were helping with rescue and recovery efforts, and military helicopters were waiting for clearer weather so they could fly to hard-hit villages.
The president canceled a plan to travel Sunday to Leyte, about 635 kilometers (395 miles) southeast of Manila, after officials warned the trip would be too risky. "I'm deeply saddened that the tragedy struck them amidst Christmas," Arroyo said.
Television images of the disaster showed a mud-splattered man desperately trying to dig out a body with a crowbar while a companion tried to pull it from the muck with his hands.
Rescuers described digging up bodies of whole families buried together, including a mother embracing her children.
In a rural, candlelit morgue, wooden coffins bearing pieces of paper with the scrawled names of the dead lay side by side.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
