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Villagers bury Uganda mudslide victims

7:00am EST

* Red Cross says 88 killed by landslide, 270 missing

* Some 1,500 people homeless

* Hopes for more rescues dwindle



By Jocelyn Edwards

NAMETSI, Uganda, March 5 (Reuters) - From a hill overlooking Nametsi, all that is visible of the village in eastern Uganda are crumpled tin roofs protruding in a field of mud.

The landslide that made 1,500 people homeless cut a black path through the jungle on the mountainside and submerged Nametsi's trading centre and health centre.

Below in the valley, villagers and Ugandan soldiers stepped around uprooted trees, boulders and through pools of knee-deep mud as they searched for the bodies of victims.

The secretary general of the Ugandan Red Cross, Michael Nataka, said hopes of finding villagers alive were lost.

"At this point, it's just the process of recovering bodies. I think it's quite definite that there will not be survivors," he said. "There's five to ten metres of mud in some places. With just simple hand tools it's very difficult to reach the bottom."

The Red Cross estimates that 88 people died in the muddy deluge and rescuers are still uncovering bodies in Nametsi and the neighbouring Namakansa and Kubewo villages.

Around 270 people are still missing.

On the hillside, groups of mourners prayed and sang at the funerals of those killed in the mudslide on Monday evening. As soldiers pulled one girl's body from the mud covering her house, relatives first recognised her from her feet. Jackie, 18, had small feet, explained a family member.

The girl's father, Mohammed Mwambwa, helped carry her away to bury her himself. The man had not yet found his wife and three other children under the rubble.

"It's unfortunate if we don't find them, but it will be God's decision," he said.

Jackie's uncle, Esau Mukhwana, came from nearby Mbale to help with the search. "Most of us are tired; that is why these army people are trying to help us," he said. "It was important to the family to find their loved ones. So that at least we see our people." In all, the family had lost nine members.



EMERGENCY HELP

As the day wore on, the smell of decomposing bodies hung heavily in the air.

The hand of a victim poked out from underneath a massive boulder. The man had been crushed in his house along with his wife and child, villagers said.

Scattered around the valley were the personal items of villagers: a yellow child-sized shirt and a school notebook.

Temporary resettlement camps have been set up at nearby Bulucheke and Bukalasi for the displaced villagers.

The Red Cross says it has distributed emergency kits with blankets, tarpaulins, soap, pots and water purification tablets to 900 households and the U.N. refugee agency has said it will also provide tents and plastic sheeting.

Survivors of the ordeal said they heard a loud booming noise as the mud fell around eight on Monday evening.

George Kamoti, whose face is bruised from the disaster, was at the village trading centre when it occurred.

"I heard the noise and I realised that there was going to be a landslide, so I ran," he said, adding that he lost his wife and five children. (Editing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)