MANILA (AlertNet) - As the death toll in the Philippines from landslides and flooding triggered by two typhoons in two weeks topped 600, experts said better weather forecasting, a rigorous early warning system and careful urban planning would have saved more lives in one of the world's most disaster-prone countries.

As of late Sunday, local officials said more than 230 people, including rescuers trying to retrieve bodies, have died in northern provinces when Typhoon Parma brought torrential rain that turned roads into muddy rivers and submerged villages -- two weeks after another storm, Ketsana, unleashed a month's rain in a day on Manila, killing 337 people. There are fears the death toll could rise further.

Hundreds of thousands of people had to abandon their homes in the worst flooding to hit the country in 40 years. More than 280,000 are living in overcrowded and often unsanitary evacuation centres where they are vulnerable to disease. The two storms also damaged infrastructure and hit food supply, destroying 478,000 tonnes of rice.

The trend could get worse: the Southeast Asian country of more than 7,000 islands tops a World Bank list of nations most in danger of facing more intense storms because of climate change.

Relief officials, who were braced for the possibility of more tropical storms in the Philippines before typhoon season ends next month, said to better manage future disasters more action needed to be taken now.

"The Philippines is a unique country because in every corner you go, there are risks -- from flooding, earthquakes, sea surges," Gwendolyn Pang, secretary-general of the Philippines' Red Cross, told AlertNet. "There is no such thing as perfect preparedness but we can be better prepared."

One way was to invest in more sophisticated radar technology that would allow weather forecasters to not only predict the arrival of typhoons but also the intensity and depth of rainfall they would generate. Weather bureau officials say they have limited radar stations to track the typhoons - on average about 20 -- that approach the country every year.

The authorities should also consider relief mapping to chart areas, such as low-lying, downstream valleys, that were most at risk, Pang said.

In Manila, which was coping with the biggest number of homeless, most residents had expected the storm but were caught out by the volume of rain that quickly left hundreds of them clinging on to the rooves of their houses.

Since few in the capital had ever experienced such heavy flooding in their lifetimes, many people were slow to evacuate to higher ground, others did not have an emergency survival kit or did not know where they could find shelter.

Pang said it was vital that early warning systems were enforced across the country. In some areas, communities raised the alarm for landslides by banging on empty methane gas tanks. In others, communities monitored the risk of flooding by different coloured marks painted on walls and trees: if the level of water rose to a yellow line, it meant caution, while green or red signalled immediate evacuation.

GOVERNMENT UNDER FIRE

The devastation and loss of lives caused by the floodwaters have prompted an outpouring of scorn at the national government and local authorities for what many see as a bungled response and for lacking the equipment to handle natural disasters.

"The government is simply not accountable to the people when it comes to disaster," said Emmanuel Luna, a professor of community development at the University of the Philippines, who specialises in disaster risk reduction.

Critics accuse President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government, which has failed to end rampant corruption, of lacking the will to take disaster management seriously.

"We have floods every year. But every year, we are unprepared," wrote Ramil Digal Gulle in a blog posted on an online edition of the Inquirer newspaper. "How do you explain the fact that the government can spend millions upon millions on so many other projects, but could only produce two rubber boats to rescue scores of residents trapped in a flooded Marikina village (in Manila)?"

Over the long-term, disaster experts said the government needed to review how and when it releases water from hydropower dams and must also clean up the capital of garbage -- blamed for clogging up pipes and stopping floodwater from draining away.

The government also needs to tighten its land policy to prevent hundreds of thousands of squatters from building their homes by riverbanks and river basins, the experts added.

This is likely to be a huge challenge in a country of 92 million which has one of the fastest-growing populations in the region and where more than a quarter of its people live on less than $1.25 a day.

Take Jun Fernandes. He survived the flooding, but his bamboo and corrugated iron house on the edge of Manila's huge Laguna Lake did not.

Undeterred by the loss, Fernandes has since cobbled together a makeshift shelter on a rocky embankment which he shares with his wife, two children, three dogs and two ducks a few metres away from his submerged house.

He told AlertNet that once the waters recede, he would rebuild his home even if it meant living in a flood-prone area because he could not afford proper housing. The refusal or inability of communities to move away from high-risk areas suggests that the same communities will be affected the next time disaster strikes.

"Poor people living in vulnerable areas are the ones greatly affected by typhoon and all other disasters," Professor Luna told AlertNet. "Many people have no option other than to stay in low-lying areas and even if these areas are prone to flooding they will still stay there hoping they would be able to cope with these disasters."

Critics say that despite the outcry, officials may be reluctant for squatters to move ahead of elections due next year.

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