Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The Philippines death toll from Typhoon Parma rose to 193 as the bodies of more victims drowned or buried by landslides were discovered.

At least 46 people remain missing while about 102,000 are in 281 evacuation centers, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said in its report this morning.

“We are focusing now on rehabilitation especially of those roads going into the mountains so that the relief teams can get in,” Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres, the council’s spokesman, told reporters today. The casualty toll will probably rise as “there are still unofficial reports that we need to validate.”

Torres said rescue and retrieval operations will probably take two weeks because many people are still missing due to landslides and flooding.

Much of the death and destruction occurred from the evening of Oct. 8, when Parma made its second pass over the main island of Luzon, causing landslides in Benguet and other provinces of the mountainous northern Cordillera region, and flooding in Pangasinan and neighboring provinces in the northwest. Damage to crops and infrastructure is now estimated at 5.1 billion pesos ($110 million).

Rescue Efforts

About 5,000 Philippine soldiers are involved in various rescue and rehabilitation operations in Northern Luzon, Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, Armed Forces public affairs chief, said today.

The U.S. military sent a C-130 aircraft and three Chinook helicopters to storm-struck areas in the north today, Brawner said. About 100 U.S. mostly Marine and Navy personnel are conducting relief and medical operations with more than 50 other American military pilots and drivers are assisting, he said.

Parma first hit northeastern Luzon on Oct. 3, ruining crops in the nation’s biggest rice-producing region. The Philippines was still reeling from Typhoon Ketsana, which flooded Manila and neighboring provinces a week earlier. The government says 337 died, 37 remain missing and 242,000 remain in evacuation centers after Ketsana, which caused 10.5 billion pesos in damage.

Parma, which left the Philippines Oct. 9, was 398 kilometers (247 miles) east-southeast of China’s Hainan Island at 3 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Downgraded to a tropical depression, it was traveling west-southwest at 22 kilometers per hour with 56 kilometer per hour winds.

To contact the reporter on this story: Francisco Alcuaz Jr. in Singapore at of falcuaz@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 11, 2009 03:13 EDT