The search for survivors of a deadly mudslide in the northwestern US state of Washington grew Monday to include more than 100 people who are still unaccounted for, as the death toll from the wall of trees, rocks and debris that swept through a rural community rose to at least 14.
In a struggle to find loved ones, family members and neighbors used chain saws and their bare hands to pick through wreckage that was tangled by the mud into piles of filthy debris.
Authorities said they were looking for more than 100 people who had not been heard from since the disaster about 55 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of Seattle.
They predicted that the number of missing would decline as more people are found to be safe. But the startling initial length of the list added to the anxieties two days after a layer of soft earth a mile (1.6 kilometers) wide crashed onto a cluster of homes at the bottom of a river valley.
