Families still stranded as Philippine typoon kills 140

Families clung to anything that would float after thousands of homes were deluged and more than 140 people are feared dead after a typhoon battered the Philippines.Thousands today desperately waiting to be rescued after the tropical storm Ketsana struck on Saturday. Many more deaths expected with thousands of Filipinos still trapped in their homes by floodwaters.

The typhoon was rated as twice as bad as Hurricane Katrina, which swamped Louisiana in 2005. In the Philippines capital Manila, rescue services were overwhelmed and 9ft of floodwater left many trapped on rooftops.Army and civilian helicopters were drafted in to drop food and supplies to at least 30,000 people. One helper said last night: "It's a huge task." Rescue workers were said to be overpowered by the sheer scale of the floods as the storms dumped more than a month’s worth of rain on the south east Asian group of islands.

The head of the National Disaster Co-ordinating Council, Anthony Golez, said resources were being spread too thinly."We are concentrating on massive relief operations. The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed," Mr Golez told reporters. "We were used to helping one city, one or two provinces,” he said. “But now, they are following one after another. Our assets and people are spread too thinly. A doctor in Manila told the BBC that he had been working 24-hour shifts in a hospital flooded with water since Saturday.

The government declared a ‘state of calamity’ and many parts of Manilla were drenched with survivors today still marooned on roof tops. Defence secretary Gilbert Teodoro said 51,00 survivors had been rescued so far and another 59,000 people were sheltering in churches, schools and makeshift camps. Even so, the government has not yet requested international help, but Mr Golez said it would welcome any assistance. The US military has sent a helicopter and soldiers to the country's south to help.Reports have also come out of acts of heroism during the floods, including Muelmar Magallanes, who rescued more than 30 people, but ended up sacrificing his own life.With the help of his older brother, the 18-year-old construction worker tied rope around his waist and took his siblings to safety before going back to the house for his parents, according to the AFP news agency.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children