The small farming village of Guinsaugon in the Philippines used to have a school and three churches, lush green fields and more than 300 houses.

As the Philippines buries its dead in mass graves, a network of Filipino groups across Canada is gathering donations for the victims of the mudslide disaster that claimed an estimated 1,800 lives in the Philippine province of Southern Leyte.

The fundraising effort is being undertaken in British Columbia, Toronto and Montreal by the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, Filipino Nurses Support Group, the Siklab workers organization, B.C. Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, and the Sinag Bayan Cultural Collective.

In Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland, donations can be made to the "Leyte Disaster Relief Fund" with Account No. 63487 at VanCity Bank branch No. 28.

Filipinos are the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada, numbering close to 400,000.

"We extend our deepest sympathies to the families of those killed in the mudslide," said Cecilia Diocson, chairperson of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

Diocson said that the tragedy was a "a case of simple government neglect."

"Even the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said yesterday the landslide was a tragedy waiting to happen," she said.

"The real reason for the tragedy and others like it are the large-scale logging operations mostly by foreign-owned companies which have caused massive deforestation and environmental damage all over the Philippines," Carreon said.

While Filipino Canadians dig deep to help their homeland and point fingers at a variety of officials for the disaster, the lucky few who escaped the disaster could only look back at what they had. "It was a prosperous and productive village," says Hamito Coquilla, his eyes red with fatigue and tears.

From across the Lawigan River, he can only stare at the bleak blanket of muck that buried Guinsaugon, and almost everyone in it, on Feb 17. Only a few rice paddies remain, everything else is gone. His wife and three children, his uncle, and one of his cousins have not been heard from since.

"There were lots of houses, including many made from stone and brick that were several storeys tall," he says with some pride, emphasising the difference between this village and the others on Leyte island, where bamboo huts are the norm. But they were no match for the tonnes of mud and boulders that came crashing down the mountainside.

"My wife sent me a text message to tell me about the landslide. I started running from the next village," says Coquilla, a 37-year-old truck driver.

He got a last message from his cousin.

"Since then I’ve heard nothing," he says. "In just a few minutes, they lost everything."

One of his cousins was a teacher at the village school, where 200 students and 40 teachers are believed buried, a small number among the roughly 1,400 people unaccounted for.

"The school was built with tough materials," he says hopefully.
Rescue workers want to share his optimism, but several Philippine officials have conceded hope of finding more survivors is all but lost.

The truck driver, frantic about his own family, used his bare hands to dig through the earth and rubble to save a woman and her child.

Rescuers are pouring into what was once Guinsaugon, now covered in up to 30 metres of mud, rock and debris. Many cross the river in the scoop of a bulldozer that is serving as a makeshift ferry.