At least 86 people were killed and dozens of others were missing early Monday after a tropical storm swept through the northern Philippines, causing Manila's worst flooding in nearly half a century, officials said. A resident retrieved a teddy bear washed away from her house near Quezon City, north of Manila, on Monday.
Two women scraped mud from the floor of a home in Marikina City on Sunday.
People waded in the chest-deep floodwater in Cainta. Officials said the flooding was Manila's worst in nearly half a century. A flooded hospital in Cainta, east of Manila, was evacuated on Sunday.
Filipinos waited for relatives stranded by the floods in Cainta. Officials said nearly 300,000 people were displaced by the storm; tens of thousands were brought to evacuation centers in schools, churches, gymnasiums and public parks.
An aerial view of Marikina City, where flooding forced some people to pitch tents.
Members of the United States Navy evacuated a woman who was about to give birth in a flooded area in Pasig City, eastern Manila on Sunday.
Survivors viewed the remains of friends and relatives who fell victim to deadly flash floods in Manila over the weekend. The death toll was expected to rise sharply as more reports of casualties came in from provinces outside the capital.
Rescuers carried the corpse of a child who was found in a residential area of Quezon City, eastern Manila.
Nearly 2 million people were affected, with more than 100,000 displaced from their homes after the storm dumped 16.7 inches of rain in just 12 hours on Saturday. Filipinos helped each other pull a house that was uprooted by floods.
Soldiers loaded bags of relief goods into a military truck for distribution to flood victims at the armed forces headquarters in Quezon City.
Inside a morgue in the town of Tanay, Rizal, east of Manila, a relative reacted after confirming the identity of a loved one killed by the floods.
A Filipino covered in mud carried a fan recovered from the floods in Marikina City.
The Philippine government appealed for international help as the death toll rose to at least 240 due to floods caused by Typhoon Ketsana. A woman washed clothes recovered from her house, which was destroyed, in the town of Pilila Rizal, east of Manila, on Monday.
The amount of rain that fell was the largest in nearly half a century, according to the government weather bureau, and flooded 80 percent of the metropolis of 12 million people. A medical patient trapped during the flooding was evacuated by navy personnel.
Children slept at a makeshift evacuation center in Cantas on the outskirts of Manila on Monday.
Typhoon Ketsana's deadly toll is causing grief and loss
The town of Angono, just east of Manila, was still covered with floodwaters on Tuesday, three days after tropical storm Ketsana hit the country.
Worst flood cause by Typhoon Ketsana, dump water amount more than half a century records.
The death toll from Typhoon Ketsana in Vietnam has risen to at least 85, a relief official has said.
The official from the national flood and storm control committee said 24 of the deaths occurred in the mountainous inland province of Kon Tum.
There were also 16 people missing and 124 injured, across the central region.
The powerful typhoon that fatally hit the Philippines and Vietnam is now weakening over Cambodia, where several people died and hundreds lost homes.
In Vietnam, the official from the national flood and storm control committee said 24 of the deaths occurred in the mountainous inland province of Kon Tum.
Across the central region there were 16 people missing and 124 injured, the official said.
As residents dealt with the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ketsana, the government was facing criticism on two fronts: Did it provide enough warning before the floods, and was it doing enough to help people recover?
To help with the recovery, the government on Monday appealed for international help as the death toll rose to at least 240.
The American Embassy deployed Navy personnel to help out in the rescue and relief operations and also promised $50,000 in immediate disaster aid.
“The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed,” Anthony Golez, a spokesman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, told reporters during a briefing on Monday. “Our assets and people are spread too thinly.”
The tropical storm arrived in the Philippines over the weekend, releasing the largest amount of rainfall in nearly half a century and flooding 80 percent of Greater Manila before moving on to Vietnam, where it has killed at least 23 people, The Associated Press reported Tuesday morning.
Nearly 2 million people in the Manila area were affected, including more than 100,000 who were displaced after the storm dumped 16.7 inches of rain in just 12 hours on Saturday.
In Pasig City, one of the hardest-hit suburbs near the heavily silted and polluted Pasig River, the floodwaters in many communities hardly decreased. “The water is not moving,” a tearful Nene Monfort, 71, told ABS-CBN television in a live interview. She said she and her family, who have been holed up on the second floor of their apartment, could not come down because of the water.
In an attempt to help deal with the aftermath of the storm, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo decided to open a portion of the grounds of the presidential palace to refugees. “The president has allowed the use of Malacanang itself, her own home, to be a center of relief operations,” said her press secretary, Cerge Remonde. He said the first family would be transferred to another area in the presidential compound.
The government also had declared a “state of calamity” in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, including many that had not flooded before, allowing officials to use emergency funds for relief and rescue.
Mrs. Arroyo earlier announced that her government would not relent in its efforts to help those hurt by the storm.
Criticism of Mrs. Arroyo’s response could affect the presidential election, which is eight months away. The administration’s candidate is Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, who also leads the National Disaster Coordinating Council.
In the narrow streets of Tatalon, residents spent Monday taking out burned trash, dumping it on the main street outside of the slum, where mounds of black debris had been piled, practically blocking the street. Filthy floodwaters snaked beneath the rubbish.
Zoraya Tera, a 39-year-old homemaker, spent hours scrubbing her floor tiles and cleaning up her burned utensils. “Nothing is left, as you can see, but I am glad that none of my children were hurt,” she said, gesturing at what remained of her home, which had nothing in it except the burned and now rusting galvanized iron roofs.
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