The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year has climbed above 700 with hundreds more missing, many of them tuna fishermen feared lost at sea, the government said yesterday.

Typhoon Bopha, which unleashed floods and landslides across the main southern island of Mindanao on December 4, has killed at least 714 people and obliterated entire communities, the civil defence office said.

It said nearly 115,000 houses were destroyed and more than 116,000 people remain in crowded government shelters, where they face acute food crisis and months of waiting for new housing to be built.