131 confirmed dead in Philippine landslides, 111 missing.

MANILA, Dec. 22 Kyodo

The confirmed death toll from landslides in the Philippines late last week has risen to 131, with another 111 people still missing, most of them from the eastern part of the Visayas Islands, government officials said Monday.

The Office of Civil Defense in Manila said it has counted only bodies recovered, most of them from mud and rock avalanches in the eastern Philippines' Southern Leyte Province on Leyte Island but some from nearby provinces on and near Mindanao Island, which were also suffered flooding and were battered by intense rain.

Television footage caught images of rescue operations underway in rain, with some rescuers submerged in murky waters as dead bodies were being fished out. The stench was becoming unbearable by Monday, some rescuers said.

Damage to infrastructure and agriculture was pegged at 147 million pesos (about $2.67 million).

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is scheduled to visit the disaster area, flying to Tacloban on Leyte Island early Tuesday, then proceeding southward by chopper.

Ahead of Arroyo's visit, a Philippine Air Force C-130 chopper has airlifted 10,430 kilograms of assorted goods, medical supplies and food packages to Southern Leyte, at least as a stopgap measure until roads are passable and a steadier stream of relief goods can get through.

Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita's office said the all-weather helicopters committed by the United States to the Philippines to help in the supply of relief goods to the disaster areas have yet to arrive.

The disaster has dampened what would have otherwise been a festive celebration of the Christmas season in the predominantly-Catholic Philippines.

Social Welfare Minister Dinky Soliman has come out on television appealing to civilians to contribute what they can, including candies and canned goods, for the survivors of the catastrophe.

Arroyo has ordered the drawing up of a comprehensive plan to restore the country's ecological stability, especially after speculation that the landslides may have occurred after torrential rain last week loosened soil where there were no more trees to serve as watersheds.

At least 5,000 people died in Ormoc City, also on Leyte, in November 1991 when a flashflood, remembered as one of the worst in Philippine history, hit the coastal city.