LEONE, American Samoa — Capt. Aaron Blanchard led a Hawai'i Army National Guard team yesterday afternoon into a grove thickly layered with mud, muck and debris.

Hawai'i soldiers in Samoa are moving from search and rescue to recovery, but this team, with their picks and shovels, were looking for a young boy from this western village still missing from Tuesday's earthquake and tsunami. Two of his sisters have already been found dead.

"It's like finding a needle in a haystack," said Blanchard, who lives in Pearl City.

Vesi Dominic Simi, a teenager from the village who was wearing a tank top, shorts and black high-top sneakers, joined the soldiers and chipped away at the mud with his shovel. "I just want to help them find him," he said.

The death toll yesterday rose to 170, including 129 in Samoa, 32 in American Samoa and nine in Tonga, as the relief effort entered its fourth day. Medical teams gave tetanus shots and antibiotics to survivors with infected wounds and survivors wore face masks to reduce the growing stench of rot, the Associated Press reported.

At a news conference yesterday afternoon at Pago Pago International Airport, American Samoa Gov. Togiola Tulafono asked people who have lost their homes to remain in temporary shelters for the next few days while relief workers continue to assess the extent of the damage.

"We are very sensitive to the fact that they want to go back to their homes and continue the restoration process, but I would like to urge them that, if they can possibly help it, stay in the shelter for a few more days, perhaps over the weekend, and work with us in making sure that the transition back to their homes is smooth and safe," the governor said.

Tulafono said a priority is restoring power to eastern pockets of the island and to get the StarKist Samoa cannery, a major source of employment, back in operation.

Tulafono expressed gratitude for the relief aid and the federal and state emergency response to the disaster. The governor said he would write to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask that the federal government also help Independent Samoa, which suffered more extensive damage.

Kenneth Tingman, the federal coordinating officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, praised the Samoan people.

"When we drove around the first day, we saw people that were not waiting, they were not acting like victims, they were taking charge of their lives," Tingman said. "They were sweeping up. They were cleaning up. And they were getting on with the duty of living their lives and putting their families back together."

RECOVERY AND RELIEF

Blanchard's team has been doing search and rescue but now that most of the dead and missing have been found, the work is more about recovery and getting relief supplies from the airport to some of the remote locations in the western and eastern fringes of the island most in need.

"What these people need are bulldozers and backhoes. That's what they need now," he said.

Maj. Joe Laurel, of the Hawai'i Army National Guard's weapons of mass destruction civil support team, has soldiers out trying to identify the risk from fuel tanks, compressed gas and ordinary household hazardous waste intermingled with fallen trees, mud and other debris.

"The impact is severe," said Laurel, who lives in Kailua.

People here waded into the foul water of the lagoon to try to salvage what was left of their belongings, even if they were only small treasures: a child's red bicycle; a purple-and-gold class trophy from Fa'asao High School; a large plastic Santa Claus hugging a reindeer.

Aperila Tu'ufuli, who works for American Samoa Power Authority, stood on a small bridge strewn with debris that she believes came from her house nearly a half-mile away at the shoreline.

Tu'ufuli was especially looking for the large fine mats cherished by her mother-in-law. She had found a few of the woven mats and was offering a reward.

"She doesn't care about the house. But these are our treasures, these are values of our culture," she said.

Up the road, Amatafafai P. Iese, who also works at the power company, said he returned to his village after the tsunami to find his mother's house gone and his own home in ruins. Standing proudly, though, was his father's gravesite. The black marble headstone with his father's photograph and the black-and-white tiles of his place of rest survived the surge.

"Always," he said of his father's presence. "We bury our loved ones near us."

WORKERS NEEDED

Kishon Pritchard Lua operates Pritchard's Bakery with her husband, Lawrence Lau, who is from La'ie. She said she saw the tsunami build from the deck of her house overlooking the village.

Lua shut down the bakery and suspended delivery so her employees could search for or be with their families. Pretty soon, 70 to 80 people from the village had fled the waves and were outside of her house.

"We took all the doughnuts and the bread that we had left from our deliveries. And my husband went and got water," Lua said.

Moefa'auo Bill Emmsley, a high-talking chief, used to be the chief executive officer of the Samoan Service Providers Association in Kalihi. He moved back home to help revive the building trades, and is now dean at American Samoa Community College's Institute of Trades and Technology.

Emmsley said American Samoa relies heavily on skilled workers from off-island because of the lack of expertise locally. He said carpenters, plumbers and electricians are going to be needed more than ever in the recovery.

The earthquake and tsunami, he said, leave both physical and psychological effects.

"What I would consider the most important is the psychological impact, especially on children," he said. "And in the adults as well, because this is — historically, we've never seen anything like this before in our lives."