"Our experts are still in search and rescue mode," said Philippine rescue leader Major General Bonifacio Ramos after provincial governor Rosette Lerias insisted there was still a possibility of life under a sea of mud and rocks.

But work halted just hours after daybreak as heavy overnight rain continued, swelling streams which have sprung up across the devastated landscape on Leyte island in the central Philippines.

As dusk fell it was still pouring and the rescuers did not even attempt to return.

"There is still no operation at the dig site as of now. Dangerous, according to geologists," said Philippine Lieutenant Colonel Raul Farnacio.

A US Chinook helicopter rescued seven members of Taiwan's rescue team Thursday morning after they became trapped by the ever-shifting mud, shortly before rescue efforts were halted.

"We rescued the rescuers," US Marine spokesman Captain Burrell Parmer told AFP. Some 70 US Marines also retreated after finding their way to the presumed school site barred by a torrential mountain stream.

Parnacio said hundreds of rescuers from at least seven countries were forced to the periphery of the nine square-kilometer (3.5 square-mile) disaster area that was the farming hamlet of Guinsaugon.

Four more bodies were pulled out from the perimeter on Thursday, he added.

Despite the help of geotechnical experts and sophisticated probes, they have so far failed even to locate the exact site of a primary school, which is feared to contain the bodies of 240 children and staff and which is a focus of the search.

Several rescue officials have said for days that no one can still be alive under soil and rocks which is 30 metres (33 yards) thick in a few places. The last of the 22 known survivors were pulled from the mud within minutes of Friday's landslip.

But Lerias late Wednesday that "we still see a possibility" of survivors, and that the hunt would not be officially abandoned.

A series of false or unconfirmed reports have bolstered relatives' fading hopes since an entire mountainside crashed onto the village on February 17 after two weeks of heavy rain.

Edna Bulagsak, both of whose parents are missing along with three siblings and a niece, was among those turned back Thursday by 20 soldiers left behind at the school site overnight.

"They ordered us to go down because of the heavy rain," she said.

A total of 120 intact bodies and 11 body parts have been recovered, the civil defense office in Manila said, giving the latest estimate of the number of missing as 980.

Some 560 people were away from the village when disaster struck, more than previously believed.

The government has set up a forensics centre to try to identify unclaimed corpses, through fingerprints and any dental records.

No one could say how long it would take to unearth the school, believed to have been swept off its foundations by hundreds of tonnes of rock and mud.

Plans by the Marines to install a two-tonne hired drill, capable of penetrating up to 60 metres (66 yards) at the presumed school site were delayed when supports were found to be missing.

Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) appealed for aid for some 3,000 other people who have fled their homes in the tiny nearby island of Panaon after some saw three-meter (-yard) cracks appearing on mountain slopes," said its country representative Nicholas Alipui.

"Food supply is estimated to last for one week and medicines are running low," Unicef official Leon Dominador Fajardo said in a statement.

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