Nearly 600 people have died or are missing in flooding and landslides that have swept East Asia, the latest of which is a mud-slip in the Philippines which killed 11 and left up to 47 unaccounted for.
A fifth day of rains kept falling from the Philippines to South Korea yesterday, as the Red Cross said more than 400 people had died in floods in China.
In South Korea at least 35 people were confirmed dead and another 28 missing as floodwaters started to ease following the passing of Typhoon Olga. Around 170,000 troops were mobilised in a nation-wide salvage operation.
Chantaburi province In Thailand counted the cost of its worst flooding ever that left six dead and one missing.
China and India have been worst hit by recent storms but Vietnam, Bangladesh and Nepal have also been badly affected. Several hundred people have been killed in recent weeks, but this week it was the turn of the Korean peninsula and the Philippines.
Torrents of rain-loosened earth and boulders came crashing down Cherry Hills housing development in the Philippines, burying homes and crumpling them like an "accordion", witnesses said.
Rescuers, armed with hydraulic jacks and crowbars, combed through twisted metal and concrete at the middle-class enclave in Antipolo outside Manila.
The search continued into the night in incessant rain. By evening 11 bodies had been recovered, raising the death toll in the country to 53, with 47 people missing in Cherry Hills. More than half a million people have been displaced in Manila and surrounding provinces, mainly due to rivers swollen by the heaviest rainfall levels in 25 years which began last weekend.
President Joseph Estrada on Tuesday placed the Philippine capital and three hard-hit provinces under a state of calamity to speed up relief work.
The Philippine authorities yesterday imposed price controls on key commodities in the affected areas and police were authorised to arrest violators.
In China more than 400 people have been killed and 66 million affected by summer flooding along the Yangtze river, the Red Cross said as it announced an appeal for emergency aid.
The Red Cross Society of China has launched an international appeal for food, clothing, sanitation materials, and quilts for 1.8 million people left homeless. Officials said it was still early days in China's flood season - last year more than 4,000 people died.
South Korea, which also saw severe flooding last year, mobilised a third of the national military to salvage homes, farmlands and roads damaged by four days of devastating floods. In the northern area the plight of residents was worsened by Typhoon Olga that ripped up the west coast on Tuesday.
Most of the confirmed victims were killed in mudslides and 24,282 people have been left homeless in South Korea. Though floods eased, huge swathes of land north of Seoul remained under swirling waters as residents tried to rescue what they could.
North Korea has also reported deaths from the storms and mudslides.
In Nepal at least 129 people had been killed in floods and mudslides over the past six weeks. In Vietnam, 36 were dead and three missing from floods.
The death toll in India, where floods began late June, remained at more than 300, including 141 in the eastern state of Bihar.