The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies doubled its fund-raising goal to 4.2 million Swiss francs ($3.64 million) and the UN World Health Organisation asked for $6.4 million in additional aid.

The Philippines has so far received a total of $14 million in emergency assistance aimed at feeding 65,000 families in temporary shelters.

Many of the 880,000 people displaced by the floods depend on aid to meet basic needs while malaria and diarrhoeal diseases pose a constant threat, the Geneva-based WHO said.

"The priority now, from WHO's perspective, is to safeguard the health of survivors and to rehabilitate public health services," said Dr Jean-Marc Olive, WHO Representative in the Philippines, in a statement.

Storm survivors lack safe drinking water and sanitation facilities and the risk of a malaria outbreak is on the rise, said the WHO. The UN funds would also be used to assist agriculture and education projects.

About 600 US Marines from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa have arrived in the flood-hit areas, bringing helicopters and other equipment to speed up the delivery of relief supplies and evacuate the sick and injured.

Corazon Soliman, the social welfare secretary, said the government would distribute about 120 million pesos ($2.14 million) worth of relief goods before Christmas Day in the mainly Roman Catholic country.

"There is still Christmas," she told reporters, assuring the children in flood-hit areas in northern and eastern Philippines that many people would send them food, toys and clothes.

Logging has been blamed for making a natural disaster worse. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the cancellation of all permits to cut and haul trees but timber companies have scuttled previous attempts in Congress to ban logging.

Damage to crops, fishing and infrastructure is estimated at 4.69 billion pesos ($83 million). It will take weeks to restore power to the worst-hit areas, clear roads and rebuild bridges.