California receives mudslide warning

The US National Weather Service has warned that unusually heavy storms may cause mudslides in the southern region of California.

Up to ten inches of rain will fall in the Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara county mountains over the next two days, creating a risk of flash floods.

California has received low levels of precipitation so far this year, but the severity of this storm threatens to make the 2006 winter one to remember for residents in coastal and inland valley regions.

"It's unusual; we don't get these strong storms every single year," Bill Hoffer, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, told the Los Angeles Times.

"This storm is big and strong enough that we're getting everything thrown at us but the kitchen sink."

Californian residents will be very much aware of the dangers mudslides can hold, for it was only in January 2005 that 13 people died after a mudslide hit the coastal town of La Conchita.

Meanwhile the search for survivors of the Leyte mudslide in the Philippines has now been called off, with nearly 1,000 people still missing.