Philippine flood waters start to recede (Reuters)

MANILA (Reuters) – Rescue helicopters and boats distributed food, water and medicine to thousands of Filipinos marooned in flooded towns north of the capital on Monday and authorities said water levels were starting to recede.

Wide areas of rice-producing Bulacan and Pampanga provinces have been submerged since late last week after the Philippines was hit by two typhoons. A third storm may develop this week.

Typhoons Nesat and Nalgae killed nearly 60 people, with 36 still missing, and damaged about 9 billion pesos worth of crops and infrastructure on the main island of Luzon, the national disaster agency said on Monday.

Josefina Timoteo, head of the civil defense office in the central Luzon region, said water levels has started to recede in some areas in Bulacan, allowing delivery of relief goods to isolated coastal areas.

"I was told the water level has gone down by one foot since Sunday morning," Timoteo told reporters. "As long as there's no new typhoon and more rains, it will normalize in about a week."

Government engineers were trying to clear landslides in the north to allow delivery of relief goods, and the restoration of electricity and telephone services.

Weather forecasters are now watching another lower pressure area in the Pacific because it might develop into a new typhoon and hit the same areas.

(Reporting By Manny Mogato; Editing by John Mair)

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11 missing in Philippine storm chaos (AFP)

MANILA (AFP) – Tropical Storm Meari caused chaos across the Philippines on Thursday, dumping heavy rains in the capital, leaving 11 people missing in other parts of the country and grounding dozens of flights.

Head-high floods swept through parts of Manila during the evening rush hour, leaving thousands of people stranded in their cars and others in their offices as traffic turned to gridlock.

Authorities said they had dispatched rescue workers in rubber boats to help residents of badly-affected riverside areas.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Manila, but authorities said at least 11 people were missing and thousands of others had been forced to flee their flooded homes elsewhere in the Philippines.

More than 7,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the Bicol peninsula of the main island of Luzon, said Raffy Alejandro, civil defence officer for the mainly rural region.

Ten fishermen were declared missing after they failed to return to port in Bicol, Alejandro said, adding that heavy seas prevented authorities from launching a search operation.

A woman had also been washed away by a flash flood in Bicol and authorities did not know whether she was alive, Joey Salceda, governor of one of the provinces in the region, said in a television interview.

Aviation authorities cancelled at least 56 flights to and from Manila, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. Thirty were foreign flights.

The state weather service said Meari had not directly hit Luzon, but it had caused a lot of damage across the island because it combined with seasonal monsoon weather and a tropical depression at sea.

It had packed maximum gusts of 90 kilometres (56 miles) an hour on Thursday, said government weather forecaster Sonny Pajarillo, adding that the storm could continue dumping rains on Luzon until Sunday.

An average of 20 storms and typhoons, some of them deadly, hit the Philippines every year.

Over the past six weeks, more than 50 people have been killed in a series of storms, one of which became a typhoon.

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24 fishermen rescued from stormy Philippine waters (AP)

MANILA, Philippines – Passing boats rescued 27 fishermen Friday from stormy waters churned up by a tropical storm in the Philippines that has left at least six people dead and 11 missing.

Philippine coast guard spokesman Lt. Col. Algier Ricafrente said 24 fishermen from a fishing boat that went missing Thursday were rescued Friday by a cargo ship off northern Pangasinan province. Three fisherman in a second boat that capsized in the area were rescued by another fishing boat, he said.

At least nine crew members of two barges and two fishermen on a boat have been reported missing in waters off Quezon province southeast of Manila after several days of heavy rains linked to Tropical Storm Sarika, now headed north away from the Philippines.

Rough weather delayed searches until Friday when conditions began to improve.

A 10-year-old boy drowned in Batangas city south of Manila and a woman died on central Romblon Island, the national disaster council said. At least three other people died earlier in floods in the southern Mindanao region. One fisherman drowned Thursday in Subic Bay west of Manila, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority said.

Sarika has been forecast to make landfall Saturday in China's Fujian province as a tropical depression.

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