In Drenched Philippines, Fresh Rain, Misery

Fresh rain fell on the Philippines today, ending yesterday's reprieve, thwarting rescue efforts, and again sending Filipinos scurrying for higher ground as rivers rose and resurgent flood waters washed through city streets. Many evacuees had returned home yesterday, but hard rains overnight and into today meant a second evacuation in as many days, reports the AP. "They are hard-headed," says a police official. "Now that the waters are high again, they got scared and they are calling us to be rescued."

"I got scared because the sky was so dark and there was this downpour," says one mom again taking refuge in a Catholic church. "We have no food and I don't know what to do." The death toll since the rains began Sunday is 23, with nine of those occurring in a landslide on a hillside slum in Quezon City. Nearly 2 million people have now been affected by the flooding, notes CNN, with hundreds of thousands stuck in emergency shelters and some 3,000 houses destroyed. The weather, however, is clearing today and expected to improve, and officials hope that the clean-up can begin in earnest. (More Philippines stories.)