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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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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South Dakota levees tested as Missouri River waters rise (Reuters)

By James B. Kelleher James B. Kelleher – 1 hr 8 mins ago

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Levees hastily erected along the Missouri River in central South Dakota were holding on Sunday as flooding caused by heavy spring rains and a melting winter snowpack continued to raise the waters toward record levels, officials said.

But the pressure on the earthen berms in Pierre and Fort Pierre, and the anxiety of area residents, will continue to increase through Tuesday, when the water being released at a dam just above the two towns reaches its peak of 150,000 cubic feet (4,247.5 cubic meters) per second -- nearly double the 85,000 cubic feet per second being released last week.

Officials have not yet ordered mandatory evacuations in the state. But as many as 3,000 Pierre and Fort Pierre residents, and more than 800 of the 1,100 homes over 250 miles away in Dakota Dunes, are threatened.

So far, the releases from the Oahe Dam have raised water levels along the Missouri in the state more than a foot.

"All the levees are holding at this hour," said Nathan Sanderson, spokesman for the Southeast Incident Management Team, which is warily watching the creeping floodwaters in Dakota Dunes in the extreme southeastern part of the state.

Sanderson said the evacuations there continued to be voluntary but added that officials were "encouraging people to leave."

Police have tried to reassure wary residents that their homes will be watched and access to their neighborhoods controlled.

"We know citizens are extremely worried during this time," said Union County Sheriff Dan Limoge.

"We hope to ease some of their concerns by assuring them that their homes will be vigilantly watched around the clock until this situation has passed."

RECORD SNOW, RAIN

Record snowfall at the Missouri's headwaters this winter and record rainfall this spring have swollen the Mississippi tributary and pushed the dams and reservoirs along it that are designed to control the usual seasonal surge this time of year to their limit.

So to protect them, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been slowly opening up the dams and reservoirs upstream, gradually lifting river water levels downstream from North Dakota and South Dakota,

The U.S. Coast Guard has closed a more than 180-mile (290-kilometer) stretch of the river from near Sioux City, Iowa, south due to high water.

Farther downstream, the river is beginning to swell beyond its banks in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri and officials braced for evacuations and built levees. The maximum planned release rates could push the river up to seven feet above flood stage at Sioux City, Omaha and Kansas City.

The result is a creeping problem expected to continue into July, adding to an already record season of flooding in the Midwest, where the rising waters of the Mississippi River caused forced evacuations and intentional inundation of thousands of acres in April and May.

The Missouri is expected to continue to rise rapidly in Pierre until Tuesday, when controlled releases from the Oahe reach maximum levels -- where they may hold for weeks.

In Montana, the Corps has increased water flows from Fort Peck Dam and widespread flooding of tributaries has forced hundreds of evacuations and inundated several smaller cities.

The Missouri River basin forms the northwest section of the Mississippi River system that stretches from the Rockies to western New York in the north and funnels water down through Louisiana to the Gulf of Mexico.

(Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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