Philippines Slowely Recover From Disaster

   The U.S. military delivered supplies by helicopters and Navy ships as the Philippines struggled with the aftermath of back-to-back storms that have left more than 600 dead.

Photo: Philippines Slowely Recover From Disaster

  After pulling six people from landslides late Thursday and early Friday, Filipino rescuers said they remained hopeful of locating more survivors in the stricken north of the country, but retrieved only bodies on Saturday.

   With roads blocked and bridges washed away, the Philippine government's resources have been stretched thin. Officials have asked U.S. troops in the country for an annual military exercise to extend relief operations.

  Troops from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Okinawa, Japan, had just finished rescue and cleanup work around the Manila, which experienced the worst flooding in over four decades after Tropical Storm Ketsana dumped record rains Sept. 26. That disaster displaced about 1 million people and killed 337 in the capital and surrounding provinces. More than 287,000 remain in evacuation centers.

  Then Typhoon Parma struck Oct. 3 and has lingered as a tropical depression for about a week, also over the main northern Philippine island of Luzon. It has dumped more heavy rains, triggering floods and landslides that have killed at least 276 people, most of them in the last two days. It has displaced about 170,000 people.

  Regional civil defense official Olive Luces said 152 bodies have so far been recovered in Benguet province — 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Manila — 23 in Mountain Province, and 50 in Baguio city. Some 51 deaths have been recorded earlier in eight other provinces.

 Rains have subsided in most areas and water was receding Saturday from low-lying provinces south of the Cordillera region, but much of the rice-growing province of Pangasinan, northwest of Manila, was still submerged. In the provincial capital of Dagupan, flood water was about waist-deep, according to the Associated Press' report.