The capital of the Philippines has been hit by the heaviest rainfall in 25 years as an exceptional monsoon continues to cause death and destruction across east Asia.

More than 30 people were dead or missing on Wednesday after a torrent of mud engulfed the Cherry Hills housing estate in Antipolo, outside Manila, on Tuesday night. Witnesses said that the estate was smashed into firewood as heavy clay slid downhill. "The houses collapsed like an accordion," said the defence secretary Orlanda Mercado, who heads the country's national disaster co-ordinating council.

Nine bodies were recovered, and rescuers worked through the night after voices and tapping were heard coming from the debris. By daybreak the noises had stopped.

At least 46 people have now been killed in other floods and landslides in the area around Manila and more than 220,000 people have been displaced across the Philippines.

The 60-year-old La Mesa dam in Quezon City, near Manila - which provides water for the capital - overflowed, forcing the evacuation of people living nearby. Some refused to move, however, fearing looters and by yesterday others had returned to safeguard their belongings.

Many Manila residents were forced to huddle on rooftops or wade through chesthigh waters with their possessions, but the most vulnerable areas were the shanty towns which have grown up on steep hillsides and close to rivers. Many squatters allowed rescuers to carry their children to safety but refused to abandon their homes for fear of looters.

"The victims here are the poor people, the squatters, so that is my top priority," said the president of the Philippines, Joseph Estrada. President Estrada said the flooding and the Antipolo disaster showed the damage wrought by years of deforestation and overbuilding.

He has ordered all government agencies to co-ordinate rescue operations, safeguard abandoned properties, and monitor prices to prevent traders from profiteering. Elsewhere in Asia, the Korean peninsula was emerging from the havoc caused by Typhoon Olga on Tuesday.

More than 60 people have been reported dead or missing in the south, where survivors are now short of water, food and blankets.

North Korea has reported deaths from storms and mudslides, saying that more than 40,470 hectares (100,000 acres) of farmland have been flooded and many buildings have been destroyed. There are fears that this will worsen food shortages in already impoverished North Korea.

Though flood waters on the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze river in China have abated, the International Red Cross appealed for aid yesterday, saying that 400 people had been killed and almost 1.8 million were now homeless.

"The fear is that due to the length of the flood season in China, we haven't seen the worst of it yet," said Jim Robertson, a Red Cross official.

Last year, the flooding from the Yangtze and major rivers in north-east China was the worst in four decades. More than 4,100 people were killed.

The Chinese premier, Zhu Rongji, who toured the region last week, has warned that this year's threat was not over.

The Yellow River area in northern China, which has been hit by droughts in recent years, is being watched closely.

The authorities fear that the Yellow River could burst its banks, affecting more than 7 million people in Shandong province.

Silting has caused the riverbed to rise by more than four metres over the past 40 years. More than 750 km of the Yellow River now flows above the level of the surrounding area. Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand have also been hit by heavy flooding. The highway from the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, to the port of Sihanoukville was cut yesterday by flash floods.

More than 20,000 Vietnamese were forced to evacuate their homes in the southern coastal areas and 32,000 people were made homeless in the Chantaburi province of Thailand, east of Bangkok.

Thailand's meteorological department warned that floods might inundate large tracts of rice-growing land in the north-east if the Mekong river continued to rise.

This summer's record rains have been blamed on the La Nina phenomenon which has encouraged the monsoons to start up to a month early, but experts agree that the consequences are much worse now as a result of the damage done to the environment by over-development of flood plains, population pressure and deforestation.

The environment department in the Philippines said 70 per cent of the area around Antipolo, the site of Tuesday's landslide, had been developed for housing and industrial sites.

"The occupation by squatters or river banks has further constricted the water channels," it reported and also blamed the amount of rubbish dumped in waterways for the disaster.

Local environmentalists also claim that illegal commercial quarrying upstream has stripped the earth of its natural cover and that the silt and loose earth washed downstream clogged the natural drainage channels.