A 7.6-magnitude quake struck off the eastern coast of the Philippines today, killing at least one person in a house collapse, knocking out power in several towns and generating negligible tsunami surges.

PHILIPPINES authorities yesterday began burying the dead from flash floods that have left more than 1,000 dead or missing, as President Benigno Aquino declared a national disaster.

DISASTER agencies yesterday delivered body bags, food, water, and medicine to crowded evacuation centres in the southern Philippines as officials ordered the digging of graves to prevent disease after hundreds died in flash floods.

RESCUERS searched for more than 800 people missing in the southern Philippines yesterday after flash floods and landslides swept houses into rivers and out to sea, killing more than 650 in areas ill-prepared to cope with storms.