Toll rises in Philippine flooding

Flood waters have left a sea of mud that makes rescue efforts difficult

Rescue workers in the northern Philippines are battling to reach people trapped in landslides and floods that have caused at least 225 deaths.

Troops have been mobilised to help clear mountain roads cut off by mud and debris, and to deliver aid.

Landslides triggered by a week of heavy rain buried whole villages north of the capital Manila. Downstream, many towns were inundated and crops destroyed.

Two storms in as many weeks have caused chaos in the country.

Typhoon Parma made landfall on 3 October, bringing days of intense rain that triggered the deadly landslides on Thursday and Friday.

A week earlier, Tropical Storm Ketsana left 337 people dead in the worst floods to hit Manila and nearby provinces in four decades.

Families displaced

In pictures: Philippine floods

Rescue teams continued to pull bodies out of the mud through the night in the northern Philippines, the BBC's Danny Vincent reports from Manila.

Relief workers fear the death toll will continue to rise.

Thousands have been evacuated from the areas hardest-hit by the massive landslides, which swallowed entire villages in the provinces of Benguet and Pangasinan.

Authorities have defended their call to open the dams which flooded the region. They said that if the dams had been breached, the impact would have been far worse.

The back-to-back storms that hit the Philippines have displaced half a million people, our correspondent reports.

Authorities say there is no place to relocate thousands of families living by the riverbanks of Marakina city, in Manila area.

The Philippines weather service said Typhoon Parma was finally moving away from the country towards the South China Sea.

But officials warned that it could take months for the flooded areas surrounding lakes and rivers to recede.