At least 53 people were killed in landslides on Catanduanes island, where the typhoon first hit land yesterday, civil defense director Renato Arevalo said. Seventeen others died in landslides in nearby Camarines Sur province, he said.

Roads throughout the central and northern Philippines were flooded or blocked by landslides. Many people were homeless after strong winds tore the roofs or walls off their simple bamboo houses.

Tens of thousands of people were also stranded as ports were shut down and ships forbidden to sail.

In the hard-hit Bicol region, one of the Philippines' poorest areas, more than a hundred thousand people were forced to flee their homes, Red Cross officials said. About 10,000 jammed the town of Matnog waiting for ferry service to nearby Samar island.

The storm alsodamaged telephone relay towers, cutting communications to most of the region.

The fatalities also included six drownings, two people hit by falling trees, another man who died of shock, and a fireman who died after his van overturned on a slippery road, officials said.

A group of gold miners believed to be trapped in a flooded mine tunnel in the town of Aroroy on Masbate island were later able to escape safely, police said.

In Manila, President Joseph Estrada ordered government offices to close at noon today, with the exception of disaster relief agencies. He also ordered a forced evacuation of slum dwellers living near swollen rivers.

About 15,700 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in the capital, officials said.

``Despite the situation, some people still refuse to leave their homes to guard their meagre property,'' said Jesusa Villanueva, principal of a school being used as an evacuation centre.

Some people, cradling chickens and dogs, stood on the roofs of their houses, a fewpossessions piled next to them. Others used tire tubes to float towards safer ground.

Hundreds of people living along a seawall near the oceanside US embassy were evacuated because of high waves. In suburban Marikina, about 4,500 people living on the bank of the swollen Marikina river were also moved to evacuation centres.

At least 12 domestic flights and one international flight were cancelled.

After skirting Manila, Babs veered north toward the area devastated last week by Super Typhoon Zeb, which killed at least 74 people in the Philippines and 43 more in Taiwan and Japan.

In Nueva Ecija province, more than 50 people crowded onto the roof of a house in the town of Gapan to escape Babs' floodwaters.

About 88,000 hectares of rice were destroyed in the province, officials said.

Babs also pounded areas around the Mount Pinatubo volcano with heavy rain, unleashing 1.5 meter-high avalanches of volcanic material from the mountain's slopes. Most of the material was carried safely away by swollenrivers.

At midday, the storm was centred over Lingayen Gulf in Pangasinan province, 200 km north of Manila, weather officials said. It had sustained winds of 120 kph (km per hour), with gusts up to 150 kph, and was on its way out to the South China sea.