The officials said they thought they had located eight more bodies under the mud but were unable to retrieve¹ them.

 

As many as 176 people remain unaccounted for.

 

A 177ft (54m) wall of mud buried the town of Oso, north of Seattle, on Saturday. Officials said the search would resume at first light.

 

"We haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we could find somebody alive," local fire chief Travis Hots told reporters on Tuesday night. 

 

"We are coming to the realisation that that may not be a possibility - but we are going full steam ahead.

 

"We are going at this hard to get everybody that's out there that's missing"

 

The sudden, catastrophic mudslide on Saturday destroyed about 30 houses, temporarily damming a river and leaving a square-mile field of muck and debris² in its wake.

 

Survivors³ were last pulled alive from the mud on Saturday.

 

But as many as 200 search-and-rescue workers at a time - aided by dogs, helicopters, laser imaging and excavation⁴ equipment - have not let up since, pausing only when darkness made the work too dangerous, officials said.

 

The search-and-rescue operation was further complicated on Tuesday by heavy rain, Mr Hots said, as the workers were forced to contend with slippery mud, upturned nails, wreckage⁵, and deep pits of water.

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