The number of dead from a landslide in a remote gold-mining community in the southern Philippines hit 28 Saturday but rescuers said they expected the toll to rise with about 35 people unaccounted for.

Heavy equipment has arrived at the scene but there was continued confusion over exactly how many people might have been buried alive in Pantukan town before dawn on Thursday.

At least 25 people were killed in the southern Philippines on Thursday when a landslide buried gold prospectors who had refused to leave an area declared too dangerous for habitation.

Officials said up to 150 people were missing on Mindanao Island after the collapse of a rain-soaked hillside that had been settled by thousands of migrants in search of instant riches.

Hackers launched a series of New Year's day attacks that temporarily shut down several Philippine government websites including the office of the vice-president, officials said Monday.

Vice President Jejomar Binay said hackers calling themselves the PrivateX group brought down his official website for 15 hours Sunday and denied access to mostly migrant Filipinos checking on his office's activities.

The Philippine government shipped more than 400 coffins Tuesday to two flood-stricken cities in the south where the death toll neared 1,000 as President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of national calamity and relief agencies rushed to help.

The latest count listed 957 dead and 49 missing and is set to climb further as additional bodies are being recovered from the sea and mud in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities.

Philippine rescuers struggled against mud, fatigue and the stench of death Sunday to help dazed survivors of devastating flash floods that have killed more than 650 people.

Entire villages were washed away when tropical storm Washi whipped the south as people slept in the early hours of Saturday, leaving a trail of flattened homes, broken bridges and upended vehicles in the poverty-stricken country.

Tropical storm Washi whipped the southern Philippines, unleashing mammoth floods across vast areas that left 440 people dead and nearly 200 missing, relief workers said Saturday.

About 20,000 soldiers had been mobilized in a huge rescue and relief operation across the stricken north coast of the island of Mindanao, where the major ports of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were worst hit.

A homemade bomb killed two men when it exploded Thursday on the motorcycle they were riding in a southern town, police said. A bystander was wounded.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the men were innocent victims or were carrying the bomb that went off accidentally in Maguindanao province's Datu Odin Sinsuat township, provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac said.

The Philippines launched its newest warship on Wednesday, a former U.S. coast guard cutter that President Benigno Aquino said would be deployed to waters at the heart of a territorial dispute with China.

Aquino said the 115-meter Gregorio del Pilar would lead patrols in the parts of the South China Sea that the Philippines claims exclusively as its own and where exploration for potentially lucrative gas fields is underway.

Thousands of traffic enforcers struggle grimly to keep the Philippine capital's notoriously gridlocked roads moving every day, but Ramiro Hinojas does it with a smile and a little help from Michael Jackson.

Rain or shine, seven days a week, the diminutive 55-year-old stands in the middle of one of Manila's major intersections, and to the cacophony of roaring engines, puts on an elaborate dance show as he deftly guides traffic flow.

A light airplane crashed into a school building Saturday near the Philippine capital after its pilot requested an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, killing at least 13 people, including two children.

The plane burst into flames after hitting the school, said Mayor Florencio Bernabe of suburban Paranaque city.