A scene of devastation

Emergency crews stacked up to 150 corpses onto a single flatbed truck, with the bodies piled higher than the side panels, an AFP photographer saw.

Pickup trucks drove through the shattered town, several with some 20 bodies laid in the back.

Hundreds of rescue workers and soldiers in white face masks were still pulling the dead out of the mud, or retrieving them from forests or ruined buildings.

For four to five kilometres (2.5-3 miles) through the town, the scene was of utter devastation and the destruction stretched two kilometres inland.

"The town is totally devastated, the remaining buildings are shells. There are no inhabitable structures left in the main part of town," an AFP correspondent said.