Philippines Girds for 'Calamity' Ahead of Super-Typhoon

Filipinos braced to be whipped by powerful winds and pelted with rain from a second typhoon in eight days, fleeing by the tens of thousands from low-lying areas and suspending cleanup operations in the flooded capital. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide "state of calamity" and ordered mass evacuations of six provinces in the path of Typhoon Parma, expected to hit the main island of Luzon mid-afternoon Saturday.

Cedric Daep, a top disaster official in the Philippines' Albay province, said officials there had evacuated almost 50,000 people to shelters on higher ground. Police and the military were helping people to leave flood- or landslide-prone areas across the north and east, where heavy rain fell Friday. "Our objective is zero casualties," Daep said. (More Philippines stories.)