Toll in Philippine Floods Hits 83

Rescuers plucked bodies from muddy floodwaters and saved drenched survivors from rooftops today after a tropical storm tore through the northern Philippines and left at least 106 people dead and missing. It was the region's worst flooding in more than four decades. The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces.

Tropical Storm Ketsana roared across the northern Philippines yesterday, dumping more than a month's worth of rain in just 12 hours—16.7 inches in all—resulting in landslides and flooding that left at least 83 people dead and 23 others missing. TV footage showed drenched survivors still marooned on top of half-submerged passenger buses and rooftops in the suburbs of Manila. Some dangerously clung on high-voltage power lines while others plodded through waist-high flood waters. (More Tropical Storm stories.)