International briefs: Philippines

PHILIPPINE rescuers, using just shovels and their bare hands, searched yesterday for survivors of a landslide that swept through a shanty town in a mining area on the southern island of Mindanao.

Officials said that a total of 15 miners had been rescued from the layers of mud that slid down to cover rows of shanties near a creek between two mountain slopes in the mining province of Compostela Valley.

However, there were still 21 people unaccounted for after the landslide, which struck early on Friday morning. Three people are so far known to have died.