106 Dead, Missing in Philippine Storm
Last Updated 3:32 p.m. ET
Philippine officials say the number of dead and missing from Tropical Storm Ketsana has climbed to at least 106 people.
The storm roared across the northern Philippines near Manila on Saturday, dumping more than a month's worth of rain in just 12 hours and setting off the worst flooding in the Philippine capital and nearby provinces in more than 42 years.
Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said Sunday that army troops, police and civilian volunteers rescued more than 5,000 people - many of them nervously clinging to each other on roofs and on top of passenger buses after the storm struck the previous day.
The newly-reported deaths included 12 villagers who died in a landslide in northern Pampanga province and nine others in Bulacan province, most of whom died by drowning.
An Army soldier and four militiamen drowned while trying to rescue villagers in southern Laguna province.
CBS News' Barnaby Lo in Manila reports more than 300,000 people have been displaced. Some 10,000 families are in evacuation centers.
But thousands remain stranded on rooftops, Lo said, waiting to be rescued for more than 30 hours, with no food or water.
Where water has subsided, the scenes of destruction are clear - shanties washed away, people left homeless, and garbage everywhere. Some areas are still 20 feet under water.
Rescuers stepped up their efforts on Sunday as the skies started to clear a day.
The government declared a "state of calamity" in metropolitan Manila and 25 storm-hit provinces, allowing officials to utilize emergency funds for relief and rescue, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said.
Emergency workers could be seen carrying bodies on makeshift stretchers in Marikina. One rescuer was seen lifting the small body of a child covered in mud.
Distress calls and e-mails from thousands of residents in metropolitan Manila and their worried relatives flooded TV and radio stations overnight.
Ketsana swamped entire towns, set off landslides and shut down Manila's airport for several hours.
Military Chief General Victor Ibrado, accompanied by journalists, flew over several suburban Manila towns on Sunday on board air force helicopters and saw many people still waiting to be rescued on roofs of their houses in flooded villages.
The sun shone briefly in Manila on Sunday and showed the extent of devastation in many neighborhoods - destroyed houses, overturned vans and cars, and streets and highways covered in debris and mud.
"The water was rolling and everything happened in a flash, every minute it was rising. So I said to myself if this reaches the second floor of our house then a lot of people here would die," said resident Ronald Manlangit after watching the flood water rapidly rise up the side of his home.
The 16.7 inches of rain that swamped metropolitan Manila in just 12 hours on Saturday exceeded the 15.4-inch average for September, Cruz said, adding that the rainfall broke the previous record of 13.2 inches in a 24-hour period in June 1967.
Rubbish-choked drains and waterways, along with high tide, compounded the problem, officials said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had to take an elevated commuter train to the disaster council office to preside over a meeting Saturday because roads were clogged by vehicles stuck in the floodwaters.
Ketsana, which packed winds of 53 miles per hour with gusts of up to 63 mph, hit land early on Saturday then roared across the main northern Luzon island toward the South China Sea.