ANKARA - The risk of fresh landslides was impeding rescue workers in efforts to find 15 people still buried in their homes a day after a wall of mud hit a mountain village in northeastern Turkey, officials said Friday.
"There is still no decision on how the rescue effort will be carried out. The site remains untouched at the moment, covered mostly with water and mud," a spokeswoman for the crisis centre told AFP.
More than 20 houses were buried Thursday when a hillside gorged by heavy rain collapsed on the village of Sugozu in Sivas province, in a region known for its mushy terrain.
Fifteen villagers -- mostly elderly people but also including a six-year-old girl -- were trapped under masses of earth, which a local official said was up to 100 meters high (330 feet) in some places.
Nine others were injured in the disaster, but their lives are not at risk, the crisis center in Ankara said.
Dozens of rescuers were immediately sent to the area along with earth-moving machines, but they have been forced to stand by since late Thursday for fear their efforts may cause the earth to move again.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener told reporters during a visit to the village that water had flooded the landslide area, forming a pond 15 to 20 meters (50 to 66 feet) deep.
"It looks as if an attempt to remove the earth would cause a (new) landslide," the minister said in televised remarks. "Experts will evaluate the situation and rescuers will begin work as soon as the coast is clear, technically."
Officials have so far given no indication of whether they have any hopes left of digging up survivors, but an expert from a non-governmental search-and-rescue organization said the chances of survival depended on how much water there was.
"If there is a lot of water in the earth that fell on the settlement, it can be compared to a flood," Saydun Goksin, secretary-general for AKUT, told AFP. "Such a landslide would lead to cases of drowning. A human being can last only two or three minutes in water."
Sener, flanked by Housing and Civil Works Minister Zeki Ergezen, said the government would help villagers pick up the pieces after the landslide, but also announced plans to relocate the village, which is about 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Ankara.
"All the houses and barns will be rebuilt," he said. "There will be a study as to how and where they will be built ... We are determined to go ahead with it in the shortest time possible."
Local officials say the site of the landslide was previously declared risky for settlement by civil construction authorities, but residents refused to move out of their homes perched on a slope.
The remaining houses in the village were evacuated as a precaution and the relatives of the missing were kept away to avoid further risk, the NTV news channel reported.
The Red Crescent sent tents and supplies to the village and an army helicopter was on standby to help evacuate any survivors.
03/18/2005 20:05 GMT