Two US warships and 1,000 Marines were steaming to Leyte island in the eastern Philippines, where 11 villages were evacuated in the same area where the farming village of Guinsaugon was wiped out on Friday when half a mountain came crashing down after two weeks of torrential downpours.

Hopes were fading fast for finding anyone alive in the 100acre stretch of mud that was 30 feet deep in places. "No one alive has been found [yesterday], only the dead, " said Joselito Rabi, a provincial social worker.

Efforts focused on a swamped primary school, with unconfirmed reports that some of the 250 students and teachers sent text messages to relatives. Sixty soldiers were sent to the scene in the morning, but had found nothing but bodies as dark fell.

The search was complicated by heavy morning downpours, the threat that the adjacent mountain remained unstable and the possibility that 752 troops, firefighters and volunteers could get sucked down into the soft, shifting mud.

The situation was so dangerous that most would-be volunteers were kept out of the area, and a no-fly zone was established over the site because of fears that helicopters' downwash could set off a fresh landslide.

Survivors had a tough time figuring out where houses used to be, and sketches of what the village used to look like didn't help much.

"It's hard to find the houses now, " said Eunerio Bagaipo, a 42-year-old farmer who lost two brothers, almost 20 nieces and nephews and a number of in-laws. "There is nothing now, just earth and mud."

Eleven nearby villages were evacuated, said Rosette Leria, governor of Southern Leyte province. The area, which is prone to landslides and flooding, has been drenched by 27 inches of rain over the last two weeks.

Lt Col Raul Farnacio, the highest-ranking military officer at the scene, estimated nearly every man, woman and child died in Guinsaugon, 420 miles southeast of Manila.

Only 57 people have been plucked from the mud . . . none yesterday . . . out of a population of 1,857. At least 55 bodies have been found, and a child who originally survived died on Friday night from head injuries. Farnacio said troops were digging only where they saw clear evidence of bodies.

Low clouds hung over the area, obscuring the mountain that disintegrated Friday morning, covering the village's 375 homes and school.

Rescue workers trudged slowly through the sludge.

Governor Leria asked for people to dig by hand, saying the mud was too soft for heavy equipment.

The wide swath of mud sat amid stretches of rice paddies at the foothills of the nowscarred mountain, where survivors blamed illegal logging for contributing to the disaster