Rescue teams find scenes of devastation in Philippines

HELICOPTERS delivered food to survivors and picked up casualties yesterday as flash floods began to recede in the northern Philippines, revealing the magnitude of a disaster that killed more than 650 people and left nearly 400 missing.

Soldiers who reached an isolated village in Aurora province reported finding about 100 dead.

In the worst-hit town of Real, in nearby Quezon province, TV images showed bodies buried under mud and debris with only the soles of their feet visible. Survivors described the stench of rotting bodies.