Tropical Storm Megi: Rescuers race to find survivors as death toll rises

At least 53 people have been killed in landslides and floods after Tropical Storm Megi devastated the Philippines. Rescue crews were still looking for survivors in flooded villages on Wednesday, digging through mud and wading through chest-high water. However the death toll from Sunday’s natural disaster is only expected to climb, officials say. Villages around Baybay city in the central Leyte province are worse hit. There, hillside avalanches and overflowing rivers wiped out homes and buried many people alive. The city’s mayor Jose Carlos Cari told news outlet CNN that at least 47 people in the area had been killed. In one village, Pilar, about 80% of the houses had been washed out to sea, a government official told news agency AFP.(BBC)…[+]