At least 284 dead in Philippine flooding from tropical storm Ketsana. (updated death numbers)

Manila is a densely populated metro area of over a dozen cities so it is not surprising that there are many casualties. You can see from the video that many structures would not be flood or wind proof. This is from the NY Times.

Personal Note: My wife just talked to our daughter in Manila. She is high and dry but then she lives in a fifth floor apartment. Our home in Legazpi on the other side of Luzon apparently is OK. In an earlier typhoon a year or so ago our bottom floor was flooded but now we added another story. Our house is mostly concrete so it seems to withstand typhoons without much of a problem. Of course we live in Manitoba Canada most of the time so we worry more about blizzards!

""At least 83 people were killed and dozens of others were missing after a tropical storm swept through the northern Philippines over the weekend, with Manila experiencing its worst flooding in nearly half a century, officials said Sunday.

As of Sunday afternoon, countless citizens in the capital remained on the roofs of their houses, where they had spent the night drenched and unable to come down because of the floodwaters that had accumulated since the rain began falling Friday evening.

Thousands of families in the capital and in nearby towns and provinces moved out of their homes as early as Saturday afternoon. Many people died in a landslide in Rizal, a province adjacent to Metro Manila that was among the hardest hit. In Marikina City, a Manila suburb, several of those who did not evacuate their homes in a subdivision by the Marikina River were found dead on Sunday.

Tropical Storm Ketsana, packing winds of 85 kilometers per hour, or 53 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour, dumped 42.4 centimeters, or 16.7 inches, of rain in just 12 hours, said Nathaniel Cruz, the government's chief weather forecaster. He said the rain that fell in those 12 hours was equivalent to the amount of rain that Manila received in the whole of September...""

UPDATE on casualties. The death toll is now(Monday Sep. 28 here Tuesday in the Philippines) well above 100 and perhaps may end up with 200 or so.

UPDATE(Sep. 30)The toll from floods in the northern Philippines rose to at least 284 dead or missing Tuesday as bedraggled victims queued up for aid and Typhoon Ketsana roared into Vietnam. Filipino communities throughout the world are raising money for the victims including in Winnipeg, Manitoba.