BUTUAN CITY—Rescuers have recovered eight more bodies from widespread floods and landslides caused by heavy rain, raising the nationwide death toll to 17, rescuers said Friday.

Four corpses were pulled from a village buried by a landslide near Bislig city in Mindanao on Wednesday, five days into a near-continuous downpour, local civil defence official Blanche Gobenciong told reporters.

A man and a woman both drowned when two boats capsized off the southern city of Surigao and off the southern island of Dinagat, while the bodies of two men were fished out in separate areas of the Agusan river basin of Mindanao, she added.

The civil defence office in Manila earlier reported six deaths from landslides, floods, storm surges and sea mishaps in Samar, one in Cagayan de Oro, and one each in Panay and Catanduanes.

Nine other people were missing in Samar and nearby Leyte, it said.

The government agency said a cold front on the eastern seaboard had triggered continuous rain in the seven days to Jan. 13.

Rising waters and landslides had disrupted the lives of more than 191,000 people, some 21,000 of whom sought refuge elsewhere, the civil defence office said.

Among the flooded areas were Cagayan de Oro, Gingoog and Oroquieta.

The World Food Program, responding to appeals for help from local governments, would provide up to 630 tons of rice to help 25,000 families affected by the Mindanao floods, the UN agency said in a statement Friday.

“Most flood affected persons are in evacuation centers and are reportedly highly vulnerable due to growing food insecurity,” it added.

In Cagayan De Oro, disaster officials said the continuing rain in Northern Mindanao damaged at least P70 million worth of infrastructure including rice mills, sea walls, fishports and irrigation facilities. AFP with Mozart Pastrano