>> it's a fascinating story and something that completely surprised me. best of luck with the movie. again, eteenage" is expanding nationwide over the next few months. caltech >> good evening, everyone. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. >> rising death toll in the washington state mud slide, a mile-wide catastrophe. now a desperate search to find the scores unaccounted for. warning signs - the risks of building on the hillside, were they ignored. tonight a special - what you don't know about mudslides. >> police in albuquerque shoot

dead a homeless man - the police and justice department want answers. >> and alaska - uncovering information about our past and the future. >> we begin with the deadly mud slide in washington state. these pictures barely scratch the surface of the disaster that buried the town of oso in seconds. that's all the time it took for 15 cubic yards of earth - mud, dirt, debris - to swallow everything in its path. the death toll stands at 15, with 170 unaccounted for. the desperate search and rescue continues in that community. allen schauffler has been there. what are you hearing, i

understand you have an update tonight. >> we are getting an update, but it's grim. we are told by search and rescue that eight additional bodies have been spotted. they have not been recovered. you can assume the dead will go up to 24. some people will be on the scene the the fringes of the slide area, doing what they can. they'll be at it full force at full light with cadaver dogs, helicopters and human resources and people on the ground. the people in the river valley up and down the north fork are stunned. they share a lot of grief, shock, pain. and something else - everyone wants to find a way to help.

>> they asked for volunteers in derrington, just up the river from the slide, and too many turned up. >> everyone is trying to help out. i understand. there's a lot of grief here. >> it's devastating. we knew a lot of people down there. with no sign, it's frustrating. >> four days into the search the hope for miracles is fading. searchers say they are still looking for signs of life. the latest shows how hollow it may be. there's so much work that remains at the landslide site, a scene of death. >> nothing is worse than the unknown. >> larry has lived here his whole life, he was turned away. >> this is my town, this is what we do. we pull together. >> resources are poring into the

area. >> these are to help patients out, or remains. >> schema teams have moved in to help with search and rescue and logistics. federal geologists placed sensors along the river, measuring a rise that could result in flooding or a risk of more slides. students went back to school where there'll be empty desks and missing friends. >> i'm sad, because i don't see my friends, and i won't be happy, if i won't be happy, i won't learn. >> for everyone on the scene, professionals, volunteers and residents, the only thing to do is press forward, keep up the search and hope. >> we'll do everything that we can with our capabilities to recover every single person and that's no guarantee that we'll get everybody. we are going to do our very best to get everybody out of there. >> that very difficult and

dangerous work made more dangerous and difficult by the weather in this area. we had high winds, and heavy rains at times. so the areas that are dried out a little bit once again getting wet and soupy, difficult to negotiate. just not helping at all, and more rain in the forecast. >> allen schauffler - thank you very much. we'll talk to allen later. join us for our special report "what you don't know about mudslides", we have the facts and science and a look at warning signs and why some experts believe this catastrophe could have been avoided. that's coming up at 11:30 eastern. now to malaysia flight mh370, and a hunt is taking place for signs of the plane. search crews are back to work in the southern indian ocean, 1500 miles off the australian coast, after bad weather hampered

efforts. the u.s. is sending a vessel to hear the ping. black box. finding it may be the only way to solve the mystery. the "wall street journal" reporting a partial ping sent eight minutes after the transmission between the plane and a satellite. it could help investigators figure out what happened before the plane stopped flying. >> it was a partial handshake, they call it, where one side says, "i'm here", and the other side acknowledges it. it's ominous, because it suggests that that plane made its final descent about that time. >> also, relatives of the missing passengers in beijing protested the malaysian embassy, saying they want evidence proving the plane crashed. >> a challenge to the care. this time over religion and birth control.

>> today the justice learnt arguments. employers must offer workers full contraception at hobby lobby. >> the government told big businesses they don't have to pay for the drugs, as long as they have a grandfathered plan, do you know why - to keep the president's political promise that you can keep the plan you have. >> hobby lobby wants to be exempted from paying for certain contraceptives if against their religious beliefs. >> the obama administration want the national security agency to stop collecting and recording information from phone calls. others are just as angry that their phone calls are stored by the n.s.a. president obama is working to end the role in the collection of metadata. they are trying to keep as many

tools as possible to protect citizens. >> i'm looking forward to working with congress to make sure we pass the enabling legislation quickly, so we can get on with the business of effective law enforcement. >> the n.s.a. would be able to obtain records, but only with permission from a judge. president obama in brussels meets with leaders and visits n.a.t.o. headquarters. he told russia to think twice before moving deeper into the ukrainian territory. >> the president came to the netherlands for a 2-day summit on nuclear security with a view to bridging allies together, leaving with a vow to punish russia if it goes further, but nothing to force it out of crimea. >> a day after joining other leaders in a vow to impose sanctions on russia if it

escalates the crisis. president obama held out hopes that troops will not invade. >> we impose what appears to be an effort of intimidation. i don't think it's a done deal. >> russia is in control of crimea and president obama was pessimistic about an end to the take over. >> it would be dishonest to suggest there's a simply solution to dissolving what had already taken pleas. >> a new poll believes that if something should be done about ukraine, 61% said no, 32% said yes. president obama is facing political blow-back at home. in the 2012 campaign mitt romney called russia the number one foe, despised by obama. the incident has been cited as misreading vladimir putin.

president obama doubled down. >> russia's actions are a problem. they don't pose the number one national security threat to the united states. i continue to be more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in manhattan. >> in what appeared to be a veiled swip, he downplayed russia's stature. >> russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours not out of strength, but weakness. >> wednesday president obama go brussels, talks with allies and a speech on ukraine. >> three of president obama's secret service agents were sent home from the netherlands and put on administrative leave. sources tell "the washington post", the three went out for a

night of drinking, one was passed out in a hallway. the secret service is investigating. almost a quarter of the earth is frozen over. under the ice there are clues to the past. researchers are studying an ice tunnel under alaska, in the hopes of understanding climate change. >> how deep are we? >> we are 60 feed below the surface. >> through frozen ground, a tunnel back in time to when the earth last warmed up and the ice melted. the ceilings bristled, and along the walls bones of a mastodon, and bison. it was a fertile plain before the glassiers rolled in. >> there's a big ice ledge on the left and here. >> other scientists come to see fossils, soil and ice formed long ago, kevin bjella studies

engineering issues for the yates military and how to plan for the effect of melting permafrost. >> if we tees out the situation showing what the temperature was prior to a climate horizon, vegetation or the ice, we'd have good information for the climatologists. the modellers working on that issue now. >> work on a larger tunnel has begun. research aimed at helping communities cope with something they have noticed, how melting permafrost causes roads to sag and how it will probably get worse. >> the idea is not to scare anyone, or set out a notion that everything it fine and we need to burn gasoline, it's not what we are talking about, it's talking about trying to anticipate changes. >> permafrost is warming. a huge amount of carbon is trapped.

the plants and animal bones - that will be released into the atmosphere. >> the former went through producing greenhouse gases, increasing the greenhouse effect, agreeing temperature again. that will melt more perma profit. >> when the trans-alaska opened in 1977, no one expected a changing climate. but it was put on stilts, to protect the tundra and forest. that prevents permafrost melting locally. it's the crude oil inside the pipe and consumption. the impact of that on the ground - that's what the scientists have to consider. >> coming up, deadly force - was it justified in the police killing of a mentally ill

homeless man. anatomy of a disaster. what you don't know about mudslides ahead in our special report.

>> the video is disturbing and graphic of the the controversy is growing.

this is the story we brought you last night, the albuquerque shooting death of a mentally ill homeless man. james boyd, the victim, was illegally camping and refused orders to surrender by police officers. the standoff lasted three hours, until the moment he was shot. >> get on the ground. get on the ground. >> boyd died soon after. the justice department is negotiating. the mayor calls the incident horrific and protesters took to the streets there saying excessive force was used. heidi zhou-castro is covering the story live from albuquerque. heidi, tell us about the protest. >> sure. the protesters out here earlier this evening say their anger is demonstrated in the video. the reason is boyd appeared to be turning away from officers.

that's not what the police chief said, he said the shooting was justified. it helps with his knife. since the statement that the police chief made, he backtracked and this outraged causing a public outcry. more than 1,000 people took to the streets, in protest of the boyd's death and the police killings of 23 people in albuquerque since the year 2010. that is far above the national average for a city this size. >> 23 people in four years. 23 police shootings there. so they are calling for an independent investigation, right? >> that's right. the mayor called for that yesterday because, you know, albuquerque police department has not admitted wrongdoing, and

that's despite the city here paying close to 26 million in settlement to the families of the deceased. so yesterday the mayor, richard barry, who usually sided with police in the past, criticised the police chief, saying he had spoken too soon, saying the shooting of james boyd was justified. >> i think he shouldn't have said that. what we need to do on a horrific situation like this is go through the video and audio. there's video that is horrific, i think anyone would find it horrific. >> we reached out to the police chief and staff multiple times. they have not responded to requests for comment. the department of justice is looking into the case and the previous police shooting deaths. their investigation has been ongoing for 1.5 years.

a representative from the department of justice will be here tomorrow meeting with the community to hear their renewed concerns. >> new mexico state senator jacob candelaria joins us from albuquerque. welcome, senator. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for the invitation. >> give me your reaction to the shooting. >> well, i think, as was expressed at today's rally at apd, the protest this afternoon, it's shock. i think a lot of people in our community are saddened by what appears to be a continuing pattern, troublesome shootings by the local police dest and the lack of response from the people in charge of the department, and the people in leadership in our city. >> is it just the shooting or is the number, 23 police shootings

in four years, part of the problem as well, in your opinion? >> i think this recent shooting enkarp sulates the concern in the community. we had 23 deaths in albuquerque because of officer-involved shootings. some of these situation, you know, speak for themselves. force is necessary some times, it's not the only response people should have. up until now, city hall is not willing to call for investigations that community members and other leaders have been asking for. thankfully there looks like enough support on the ground push for the incident of the boyd incident. >> the mayor criticised the police chief for saying the

shooting was justified. what do you make of the reaction from the police. >> as someone who is not trained in law enforce. as a senator and resident of the city, it seemed knee jerk to me. and i think in situations like this, what we don't need are knee jerk reactions or people politicizing this. what we need to do now, as a city and community, is ask the tough questions of ourselves: why are the shootings happening, and what do we do as a city to stop them from occurring. what saddened me is the message and image we are portraying to ourselves to the rest of the country and the world. we are a great city, a city that takes care of each other. at this trying time we don't need knee-jerking or this kind

of bunkering down, we need to take a long hard look at ourselves. >> what message do you think it does send to the rest of the country? >> not a good one. i think the numbers speak for themselves, and the video speaks for itself. i was moved to tears when i saw it for the first time. it speaks for itself. we need to take a look at how we are governing our city, training our officers and supporting them. no one de nice being an a police officer is a tough job. we need to provide the training and support to stop these incidents and tragedies from happening again. >> senator jacob candelaria, thank you for being with us. i want to bring in eugene o'donnell, a professor at the john jay college of criminal justice. and a former new york city

police department officer. welcome. good to have you on the program. can you talk to me about what you have seen in the video and give me your reaction? >> in a narrow sense this is about a few seconds at the end. i would say these are leadership issues. how did this come to pass? how did this set of circumstances occur where a mentally ill person left to his own devices became attended to by the police, got their attention, how did they diagnose this, and what is the infrastructure for preventing this? by the time you get to the last few seconds, it's a less large issue, becoming a small issue of the police saying they made a direction to the person to drop weapons. people saw the video, they can make their own judgments. in typical police shootings,

where there's a doubt, it can be resolved in favour of the officers. the larger question is is this a police department that has the right emphasis on preserving life, using every alternative. does it inculpate uniformed officers, swat officers that life has to be preserved. >> what do you make of 23 police shooting deaths in four years? how does it compare to new york city. >> new york is imperfect but it's the gold standard. there's virtually no shootings, maybe three dozen in a 35,000 police department the the n.y.p.d. does a terrific job that the saving of life is paramount. not necessarily to endanger

people. it can be out of whack in some parts of the country and some departments, with officers need to be convinced to only fire when they must. >> how do you change the culture? >> the mistake is to take front-line people and make them the whipping people. they are not setting the policies. it has to be changed at the top. getting them to buy in, when the cops feel proud to work at an agency valuing human life, putting you alt the top, that is essential. >> so it takes a leader willing to step out and take responsibility. >> there's a device that doesn't have to take place. the senator did a nice job talking about it. no one needs to pick sides. a person died who shouldn't have died in an ideal situation, the

person that needed mental health assistance. other assistance that didn't involve it. you can simultaneously preserve the life of people no matter the status of life. it can be done, and has been done in other cities. where cities have a cultural lag, they need to get about the ability to change that. >> coming up, without warning the search for the missing in washington state as new details emerge of this disaster. plus the victims of the catastrophe and the disturbing questions - whether there were warning signs - coming up in our special report you don't want to miss at the half hour - what you don't know about mudslides.

[ ♪ music ] >> swept away. >> a mud slide happened.

>> in seconds, lives lost, a community shattered. >> we're going lose our house. >> the staggering toll, the search for survivors, and a haunting question - was this disaster waiting to happen? tonight the facts, the fears. >> i hope i pick up the phone and it's him. >> on this unstoppable force of nature. our special report - what you don't know about mudslides. >> for the survivors there was little warping, for the victims, no chance to escape. a mud slide that covered the tiny town of oso lasted seconds. in the wake of destruction, consider this picture. this is what the area looked like before the mud slide. this is what it looks like now. hard to believe under all the mud and water and trees was a thriving community of homes and people. now there's almost nothing. what happened, why and what went

wrong. we'll look at those questions and why mudslides are so uppredictable. first the latest from washington state. allen schauffler has been there all day lopping and joins us live tonight with more. give us the latest on the search for bodies, allen schauffler. >> well, the latest, unfortunately is more bodies have been located. two more found and recovered the the official counted is 16 killed in the landslide. it will go up. another eight victims, bodies, have been located. they have not been brought out. they haven't been added to the grim tally, which is going to go up. imagine that this is second that happened in a matter of seconds, but will impact this community and the small communities around it for a long time. seems everyone knows someone who is missing. we'll go back to the beginning, some of the 911 tapes - the

calls, rather - that came in when the slide hit. lich to she is folks calling as their world came apart. >> a mud slide happened. >> what is going on just now? >> i got people screaming for help. do you see another person? >> are they in the middle of the water? >> yes, they are in the middle of the mud. they're gone. >> stunning sound coming out of the 911 calls. they'll have search and rescue scenes out at the scene at first lixght people are staying in the area to do what they can. they'll be out in force. we expect 200 people to be in

the area looking for what they can find. >> i know in the years you've been reporting in the north-west, you have seen mudslides and slides in that area. nothing like this. how is this community coming together? well, first of all, you are right. not unusual that we have landslides like this in this area at this time of year. but the scale and the human cost that nature has exacted is mined boggling for everyone here. a lot of these people are in shock, i think, sharing a lot of grief and a lot of pain, but coming together - they had a call out for volunteers in derrington. they were overwhelmed. too many people showed up. they had to send them home or work them into secondary shifts. emergency management say everyone is offering their help. everyone wants in.

>> this is my town. this is what we do. we pull together. >> everyone is trying to help out. it's frustrating. i can understand. there's a lot of grief here. >> and we understand that volunteers are working alongside search and rescue teams at the site. a lot of folks are loggers. they brought out the chainsaws. they were clearing the skies, along with the federal, state and local personnel. it's a huge effort and everyone wants a hand in it. everyone in a situation like this wants to help. >> i took oo look at the before and -- a look at the before and after pictures. it looks like the path of the river was moved by the force of this landslide.

is that right. >> absolutely. this thing came down out of the mountains, blasted through the river, up the other side, across the highway and took out homes along the way and up into more area along the highway. amazing force. it is finding its natural channel - water will find a way, and this water is. it changed the nature of the river. there's some minor flooding upstream, a lake building upstream of this clog that the slide created. we understand sex or so homes that had to be evacuated. that's expected not to be a problem. the water fining its way through, making a channel and moving downstream. >> stand by, we'll get back to you but we have john levett from

the community on the phone. can you give us a sense of what is happening tonight? >> thank you. allen schauffler has been there every day and he's a tremendous person and i want to thank him. what he said is it. i happened to be a guy that went to mt st. helens 34 years ago, and i have not seen anything like that, except that this is probably worse than what i saw at mt st. helens. what i say to people is this: you have to see it to believe it. when you see it you will not believe it. it's the worst thing i have seen in my life. >> we are looking at some pictures now, and i'm trying - you try to get a feel from above what happened. the last big landslide i remember from the north-west was han whidbey island, where the

side of a cliff came down, and the pictures were similar, but the size of this is bigger. >> the size of this is bigger. i flew over the area on sunday. if you imagine a file of highway i 30 covered by debris, as high as you could see it. it's like someone went in with a scoop and scooped out a side of the mountain. i have never seen anything like it. and when i see it i do not believe what i'm looking it. it seems impossible for something like that to happen. it's unbelievable. >> can you give us an update on the sample? . >> we had to scale the search back, because it's dangerous where the searches are. we'll be out first thing in the morning. we'll have over 200 plus people in the area, the national guard

and the urban rescue communicate. fema is with us. we are doing what we can to look at survivors. >> how are people of your county coping? >> it's difficult. we are a resilient community. we are getting a tremendous amount of support. we are all impacted by the slide. i know people who are missing. i spent a lot of years in law enforcement and i know a lot of people in the community. it's impacting all of us. >> thank you for taking the time, a busy time for you, to talk about this. >> to help us better understand what happened in oso is jonathan betz, who has been examining satellite image of the terrain. >> oso is an hour's drive from

seattle. it's a small town. searchers are focussing on town and buildings. nearly all in the path of the land slide, a chunk in the mountain gateway. rock and debris coming down the him across the river. all spread across a highway and took out more homes. the mud slide stretches for a mile were end to end. in places the mud is up to 15 feet dope. rescuers are trying to find all the homes, cabins, mobile homes, vacation property. 14 have been killed inkewelleding reportedly linda mcpherson, who lived in this house. her husband was hurt. the 69-year-old was approximately known and she accused to be the librarian. dozens are missing, including this man steve hadaway, he doesn't live here. he was working on a house.

it's not just residents, but contractors, visitors, families are unaccounted for, including this one, delaney webb, and her fiancee were visiting her grandparents at this home. the four have not been heard from since. it's difficult for crees to get to the neighbourhood so authorities are worried the death toll will rise. >> i want to go back to allen schauffler in arlington. this is a town of about 200 people. can you describe the area around it? >> it's a rural area. more neighbourhoods in the woods along the river than what you might think of as a town much this was a big horseshoe bend in the river and a couple of roads and a series of properties stretched out. beautiful riff vow.

gorgeous river valley, pretty scene. a whole series of homes in that one area where they said 45 structures of various kinds much not necessarily a town like you think of it with a main street and stores. more like a neighbour hood, and that is just gone. there's a series of other little communities like this to the east and west. they are book-ended on either end by bigger towns. arlington and derrington to the east. community centres in both places set up to house anyone. i spoke to a red cross manager and he said in the shelter set up in arlington, they have 29 people. almost every one lost someone. they are not just dealing with displeased people, but people who had their homes wiped out

and are suffering, and they've had to brick in grieve counsellors to help them. it's multi-layered, complicated situation for everyone. stand by again. >> a resident sierra sansaver was driving with her boyfriend when she saw the mud slide. she joins us on the phone from arlington. can you tell us what you saw and heard? >> coming down the hill, around the corner, i had seen one car with flashes on and a couple of people standing by of at first we thought it was a car dent, but it was not a car accident. we saw mud and a house in the middle of the road. >> what did it sounds like? >> we didn't hear it, when we got out of the vehicle and

started walking you could hear a subtle sound. it wasn't - you couldn't here a big crash, it was like more mud. >> i understand that you saw a house that was flattened. did those people make it out of the house okay, do you know? >> the neighbour of that house said they weren't home, so i'm guessing nobody was in the house. >> did i understand you and your boyfriend heard the cry of a painy nearby. >> yes, we did. i didn't - i couldn't tell if it was a baby or a younger child. >> i think we are showing a picture. you heard a young child screaming.

>> yes. >> you said the bibe turned blue. >> they were pulling the baby out in front of me. i looked over the shoulder to see if it was really a baby, if it was alive, but the baby's face was blue. at that moment i was just - i didn't realise that there were living people out there. >> and you say the baby is doing okay as far as you know, right? >> i've been looking up to see if the painy is alive, and it shows the baby is in -- baby is alive and it shows that the baby is in critical condition. >> what rehabilitation do you have? >> i was devastated. i couldn't comprehend that this happened to our town. thinking about it, seeing the

pictures - it breaks my heart. >> we appreciate you taking the time. thank you. >> while the landslide in washington state is buried, it is not the deadliest in the united states. richelle carey joins us now. >> the rising death toll is a reminder of how natural disasters like this have impacted the country for years. >> you are looking at the moment a massive landslide levelled part of the wilderness in canada. a news team was on the scene to capture this. in the u.s. the worse was nearly 100 years ago, with the collapse of the st. francis dam sending 12 billion gallons of water down

the valley, killing 500. in 1969 a category 5 hurricane slammed into west virginia. sparking flooding and a land slide leaving 150 dead. in 1985 a landslide in puerto rico triggered by a tropical storm killed 125 people. a few years easterly heavy rain led to a landslide. 18,000. killing more than 30, causing tens of millions in damage. shutting down the golden gate bridge for a time. >> in montana part of the earth came down. more than 2,000 died. >> officials with the geological survey says landslides causes

$1-$2 billion in damage. the worldwide total numbers in the thousands. >> powerful pictures. >> coming up in our special resort of the battling the elements. extreme weather making search and rescue diff. plus, snapshots - the images from washington state, the stories they tell of the lives lost and changed forever.

>> let's bring in pat abbott, a professor of geology. what causes mudslides like this? >> we are dealing with weak rock. when some. shots of a hill where you see it exposed you see layers of sand. some of that is volcanic ash that's fallen from the sky and glaisiers grind up rock into powder, making weak rock. we could walk up to the cliff and pull handfuls of it off. you take the weak sediment, fill it with water, increasing the pula gravity and we see not just a slide but where the material turned from sand and water in it to water carrying sand and mud.

it was that flow that knocked down buildings, suffocating people. >> i believe it was more than a year ago on whidbey island, where there was a mud slide that looked like this but it was smaller. why was this one so large. >> you're right it was last year at whidbey island. it is common you have there because of the weak rocks. >> this is larger. when you look at the map, you see the riverer takes a bend and is cutting into the base of a hill. as the river erodes the base of the hill, it's emoving the lateral support. and that may be an important factor for why this particular one was a large overwhelming event. >> can geologists predict something like this? >> we know the conditions.

i have looked at a lot of these, and we see it when it's exposed. the area is beautifully vegetated with trees and grass, wonderful environment, tough for the geologists, because you can't see the rocks, it makes it hard to get a look and see where the weakest spots are. >> a lot of areas that i have seen in mudslides are near the water, near the puget sound usually. the real question is if we don't let people build in a flood plain, should we not let people build in a mud slide plain. >> indeed, that is a hazard. it's easier for gooeologists to alook at the slope angle, the week materials, here is a river. on the other hand how many rules and regulations can you make, how many places can you get, how many people's lives do you change by saying "you can't do

this." it sounds easy, but is diff to carry out over a large area with thousands and millions of people. >> are there geological standards in the united states. >> we have a building code that covers the country. a lot of detailed things come out in state, county laws. in a crazy quilt pattern. in general we learn from disasters. an earthquake happens, a building fails, change the code. it's a slow process. it tends to be disaster driven. when something is horrifying it captures attention. that's when it focuses on the need of changing rules. i hope that starts - this event starts that kind of discussion now. >> it is shaping up to be a disaster. >> thank you, appreciate your

insight. >> as we have been reporting the death toll from the mud slide is rising. in the north-west the weather can wreak havoc with a search like this. allen schauffler is back in arlington, where i believe the wind and rain just about blew your tent over, right. >> completely destroyed it. it was an interesting couple of minutes. it's been a blustery day, wet, pounding rain through the day, and that made the slide area very slick to walk on. there's a lot of clayey mud and in some areas it's soupy like quick sand. it takes them half an hour to get 100 yards walking. few flat surfaces. all the goop mixed in with construction materials, electrical materials, all the

record of all the structures, cars as well. dangerous scene. it's an interesting thing, nature trumps, gravity wins. in the northern cascades things will slide. if you try to pull the housing permits to everyone in the pacific north-west to everyone wanting to build at the bottom of the hill, you won't have many building anywhere. it's a horrible fact of life. >> this search could go on for a long time. as i look at the wreckage i wonder how long it will take to clean this up as well. >> well, we have heard no time line for getting the highway cleaned off. they are not saying "we're searching for four days and that's it", they are moving

ahead, full intensity, trying to keep up hope. they say they are working as fast as they can. nobody has put an end time on this. it will go on for a long time. effects will be felt in this area for a long time. the river will find a new course, and the water will find its way to the ocean the the people left behind will be affected for some time. >> thank you allen schauffler. and flood warnings in oso tonight creating problems for the search and rescue efforts. kevin corriveau is here tracking the storm. a lot of wind and rain causing problems. >> that's right, there's a bit of a break after the landslide. we've had so much rain in this area, over 200% in this region. we'll see more, there a break, but there's a storm in the

pacific, and it will bring the rain bands hour after hour. we think we'll see 2-3 inches of rain across the region. these are the forecasts for wednesday, thursday and friday. we may get breaks but we won't see into the rain. we look at the forecasts temp wise down to 36. system be cold. so much rain in the area, and flooding is a potential and the rain will cause the hillsides to be unstable. we are talking with rescuers dealing with the red sticky mud, clay. >> we share our picture of the

day - this time, pictures of people in oso. like summer raffo, missing after three days. kristopher langton, and his son cif , survivors at a red cross shelter. cy young and dog bo. it just messed her home. riley bradley. seven. giving what she can. she has toys and clothes donated to kids. and the oso community church with a request. headlines are after this.

>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey, here are the top stories. the death toll in washington state in the mud slide stands officially at 16. authorities have spotted at least eight more bodies, and

that can bring the total to 24 by daybreak. they are not expecting to find any more survivors. more than 170 missing children reports were filed. >> search clues look for debris in the southern indian ocean, the "wall street journal" is reporting a partial ping sent eight minutes after the final satellite location. >> the supreme court heard the hobby lobby, testing whether employers must provide insurance coverage for all contra-septemberive. the decision will not happen until june. >> president obama warned moscow of tougher economic sanctions if russian forces moved behind crimea. the president is in brussels to

visit. those are the headlines. "america tonight" with joie chen is next. you can get the latest news online at the website, aljazeera.com. >> on america tonight. a desperate search for life and hope, after the massive landslide that crushed a washington state community. my 16-year-old daughter, my adult son and his two young sons were down there digging with their hands trying to find her. >> didn't anyone know this might happen? also tonight, guns and rights. memories of two young men and the stand your ground claim used to justify their killings and the inspiration of a different firearms campaign