KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: Excitement ran high at the Bukit Antarabangsa landslide site yesterday when firemen working with sniffer dogs located a body under the earth and rubble at about 5pm.

Speculation was that the rescue workers had found the body of a missing Sri Lankan maid. The woman had worked for Dr N. Yogeswari, who died in the landslide on Saturday.

Rescue workers gingerly cleared the earth for two hours to get to the body.

To their disappointment, it was only the carcass of a dog.

Selangor police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar said the dog was found in the room used by Dr Yogeswari's maid Lourdes Mary, but there was no sign of a human body there.

"The rescue workers have searched the maid's room and kitchen area but turned up nothing, so we have temporarily called off the search and rescue efforts to plan a wider search pattern," he told a press conference here yesterday.

"We will decide on the new search pattern at the Bukit Antarabangsa Disaster Committee meeting tomorrow (today) and then restart search and rescue efforts."

DCP Khalid said the chances of finding Lourdes Mary alive were very slim.

However, he said, rescue workers were still doing their best.

He also held out the possibility that the maid could have left the place before the landslide.

"So far there has been only one report of a missing person," he said.