Philippines floods, landslides kill 6

Landslides and floods after days of heavy rain in the Philippines killed five children and an adult, officials said Monday.

Three girls are missing.

The dead included a one-year-old baby and his five-year-old sister who were buried by a landslide as they slept in the central Philippines' St. Bernard township.

More than 1,300 townspeople have sought shelter in a gymnasium and schools after the landslide hit Sunday, Mayor Rico Rentuza said. The town in Southern Leyte province had one of the Philippines' worst disasters in 2006 when a mudslide buried the entire village of Guinsaugon, with more than 1,000 people.

The body of a three-year-old boy, a neighbour of the siblings, was found Monday, said Angel Gaviola, the regional civil defence director. Rescuers pulled a seven-year-old survivor from the debris, but his condition was unknown Monday evening.

A 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy drowned in two other flooded towns of Southern Leyte, Gaviola said.

In the southern Philippines, a 60-year-old woman was killed in a landslide and three missing girls were last seen playing near a swollen river, said Senior Supt. Aaron Aquino, police chief of Compostela Valley province. The girls are between six and eight years old.

The woman's body was retrieved Monday after her house in the gold-mining area of Mt. Diwalwal was buried Sunday night, Aquino said.