A tropical storm in the Philippines unleashed flash floods that swept away people and houses and set off landslides, leaving more than 200 dead on Saturday.

Most of the deaths from Tropical Storm Tembin were in the hard-hit provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur and on the Zamboanga Peninsula.

Police said 144 people remained missing while more than 40,000 had fled to evacuation camps as Tembin roared out into the South China Sea early Sunday.

A total of 70,000 have been displaced or affected by the storm according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which warned that continued heavy rain could hamper the search for survivors.

It is the latest disaster to hit the Philippines, which is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year, making the archipelago that lies on the Pacific typhoon belt one of the world's most disaster-prone countries.