Philippines pounded by Parma

The northern Philippine island of Luzon has been drnched with non stop rain from Tropical storm Parma throughout the entire week. This storm slammed into the northern coast of the island early this week as a Category 2 storm. It retained typhoon status as it traversed through the entire length of the north coast of the island and into the South China Sea.

Thanks to influences from Typhoon Melor, Parma then did a U-turn and zig-zagged back across the island as it slowly dropped from a typhoon to a tropical storm all the way to a depression. PArma's second pass essentially took it over the same area that it passed on its first crossing. The third crossing was further south interacting with regions that were inundated from Tropical Storm Ketsana the week earlier.

Parma's first pass killed 22 people and displaced thousands.

Storm Season Relentless in the Philippines (New Tang Dynasty Television)

Filipinos are dealing with floods brought on by Tropical Storm Parma as best as they can.

The storm is now slowly heading toward the country's tobacco-producing region, after killing at least 22 people.

Half a million people have been displaced.

Parma, downgraded to a tropical storm on Monday, was hovering off the northern tip of the Philippines yesterday.

Parma's most recent pass caused heavy mud slides that continue to kill people and destroy homes and farms.

Landslides claim 181 (IOL)

Pangasinan, Philippines - The death toll from two weeks of unprecedented storms across the northern Philippines soared past 540 on Friday after landslides consumed homes and neck-deep floods inundated towns.

At least 181 people were killed in a series of rain-triggered landslides overnight Thursday and on Friday in mountainous regions of the Philippines' main island of Luzon, local officials reported.

Meanwhile, the downstream farming plains of central Luzon were inundated with waters that reached two storeys high after dams in the mountains could not hold the phenomenal amount of water that has fallen on the region.

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The worst of the overnight landslides appeared to be in remote Benguet province, where 120 people were confirmed killed in five towns, said provincial governor Nestor Fongwan.

Another 38 people were confirmed killed in the neighbouring mountain resort of Baguio, officials there said.

Across all of the north, the confirmed death toll from the landslides was 181, on top of the 25 people killed earlier by Parma.

In the farming region of Pangasinan province to the southwest of the provinces where the landslides occurred, thousands of people were stranded on rooftops in dangerously similar scenes to those in Manila a fortnight ago.

Days of rain from Parma forced authorities to open the gates on five dams, sending water cascading through dozens of towns in Pangasinan, which has a population of 2.5 million people.

Parma is once again a tropical storm and is in the South China Sea heading for southeast Asia.