Fatalities and damage from Typhoon Parma mount in the Philippines

A woman holds on to a man as strong currents pull her away from
the streets in Rosales town, northern Philippines, on Friday, Oct.
9, 2009. Hundreds of people have been killed in the country's
worst flooding in 40 years after back-to-back storms started
pounding the country's north Sept. 26. (AP Photo/Mike Alquinto)
More photos in our slideshow below.

The death toll in the wake of Typhoon Parma continued to grow in the Philippines as flooding and landslides claimed more lives and officials continued their recovery efforts. Officials said that 265 people were dead from flooding and landslides in the wake of the storm which dumped massive amounts of rain on the northern part of the nation.

The disaster followed on Tropical Storm Ketsana, also called ‘Ondoy’, which claimed 337 lives in the worst floods to hit Manila in 40 years. Parma, also known as Pepeng, struck the Philippines this week adding to the woes and the fatalities as while it quickly weakened, it remained over the area as a tropical depression pouring rain on the already saturated land. More than 600 have been killed between the two storms.

On Thursday and Friday massive landslides triggered by the rain buried entire villages. Most of the deaths caused by the slides occurred in the provinces of Benguet, Mountain Province and the resort city of Baguio. Flooding in the Pangasinan province northwest of Manila was widespread and rescue and recovery efforts were focused on those areas.

Local civil defense personnel and the Philippine military worked through the mud and rubble to recovery bodies and search for survivors. Olive Luces, a civil defense official, said ,"We are positive that we can still recover live victims. We don't think of the negatives." Expressing hope that more survivors would be found he said, "However difficult it is, our volunteers do not lose hope."

U.S. Chinook helicopters hover above to rescue trapped residents
following massive flooding at Rosales township, Pangasinan
province north of Manila, Philippines Friday Oct. 9, 2009.
Rescuers struggled through mud and pounding rain Friday to clear
mountain roads and retrieve the dead from dozens of landslides
that buried villages and cut off towns in the rain-soaked northern
Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) 
More photos in our slideshow below.

The U.S. military arrived in the area on Wednesday to lend humanitarian aid. Sailors and Marines from the U.S. 7th Fleet deployed vehicles, rafts and helicopters and conducted rescues and helped in the delivery of relief supplies. U.S. military helicopters were being used to reach areas that could not be reached by land. Roads in the area have been buried by landslides or destroyed by flooding waters.

The USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) and USS Tortuga (LSD 46) remained anchored in Manila while other parts of the task group including the USS Denver (LPD 9) moved on to Indonesia to aid that nation in recovering from massive earthquakes that struck last week.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council said that 287,000 people remain in evacuation centers and tends of thousands of homes have been destroyed. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared a national calamity ensuring the prices of basic goods are fixed and allowing local governments to receive emergency funds.