Death Toll Climbs as Rain Pounds Koreas, Philippines

Tropical storm Olga was heading for China today after leaving a trail of destruction on the Korean peninsula, where at least 63 people were dead or missing after four days of torrential rain.

South Korean authorities said 35 people were dead and 28 missing since Friday. Olga swept through the peninsula early Tuesday.

Olga was downgraded to a tropical storm from typhoon strength late Tuesday. It had lost much of its intensity by the time it passed through Seoul on Tuesday night before moving into North Korea.

Officials were unable to determine the extent of storm damage in reclusive North Korea, where a series of floods and drought in recent years destroyed crops, damaged farmland and left many people starving.

In many parts of Asia, rivers swelled and rice fields became lakes amid persistent rain, forcing people to flee low-lying areas, postpone air travel and abandon flooded homes.

In the Philippines, a hillside weakened by three days of monsoon rain collapsed Tuesday, knocking down houses and killing at least three people, officials said. Rescuers struggled to reach many buried in the rubble.

Epitania Reyes, 39, said she and her two children and mother were trapped inside their house in the Antipolo housing project after it was covered with mud and debris from the collapsed hill.

“I was yelling and crying, and my children were crying,” she said. “After a while the rescuers were able to cut a hole in the roof and pull us out.”

Her mother is still missing, she said.

The deaths brought the toll from torrential rain in the Manila area to at least 32.

Flooding paralyzed traffic in metropolitan Manila, and 60,000 people were evacuated from the capital and the surrounding areas.

In South Korea, a tour bus plunged into a river after skidding off a rain-slick road in Choonchon, northeast of Seoul, killing five people and injuring 30.

Troops used dinghies and amphibious landing craft to deliver food, blankets, medicine and bottled water to stranded residents in towns north of Seoul.

“It’s a water city here. You can’t move without a boat,” said Lee Chae Sook, 66, in Paju, northeast of Seoul.

Rain-swollen rivers overflowed, breaking dikes, sweeping away roads and homes and triggering deadly landslides, including one that killed 10 vacationers.