A typhoon that swept through the Philippines on Tuesday and Wednesday has claimed at least 16 lives, and caused tens of thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes.

On Christmas Day the gusts of Typhoon Phanfone reached speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour as they ripped through Visayas: the central region of the predominantly Catholic southeast Asian nation.

Roofs were torn off houses as trees and electricity posts were toppled, with wind and floods forcing thousands of residents to leave their homes to reside in temporary shelters.

Among the 16 dead confirmed by Filipino disaster agency officials was a police officer who was killed while on patrol. He was electrocuted by a falling electricity pole.