Floods kill 
23 as rains 
batter the Philippines

Government forecasters said the monsoon rains that overflowed major dams and rivers criss-crossing Manila and surrounding provinces will gradually abate and lead to sunny weather later this week after 12 days of relentless downpours. The deluge was the worst since 2009, when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods.

“We’re still on a rescue mode,” said Benito Ramos, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency. “Floods are receding in many areas but people are still trapped on their roofs.”

Ramos said the massive flooding turned half of Manila into a “water world” on Monday evening and into Tuesday.

At least 23 died, including nine in a landslide in a hillside slum in suburban Quezon City and several others who drowned in outlying provinces.

More than 1.2 million people were affected by the deluge, including 783,000 who fled from their inundated homes.

Carmen Empesao left with her three grandchildren when waist-deep floodwaters swamped her home in the city of Marikina.

“We fled without any food and the clothes we managed to grab were wet and cannot be worn,” Empesao, 60, told reporters in an evacuation centre.

the typhoon in eastern China that has helped intensify the south-west monsoon in the Philippines has blown further into the Chinese mainland. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from Shanghai after the third typhoon in less than a week.