After days of wading through mud and floodwaters, exhausted residents today scrambled for a seat on a helicopter or a ferry to escape coastal villages ravaged by back-to-back storms that killed at least 568 people and left as many missing.

Rescuers scrambled today to reach scores of people left stranded by a powerful typhoon that sliced through the Philippines on the heels of a rainstorm that killed more than 420 people with possibly hundreds more missing.