Three days after a once-in-a-generation storm pounded Manila and surrounding regions, officials said they were unable to cope with the enormous number of flood victims still pouring into evacuation centres.

"More people are coming in by the hour... We don't know how long we will be able to sustain this," said Joe Ferrer, a local government official in charge of a shelter on a basketball court on the edge of the Manila area.

"We need clothing, food supplies, food rations and medicine."

Already 3,000 people from the depressed San Andres neighbourhood were at the basketball court, and flood survivors told AFP they were tired and hungry. There was a single toilet for all of them.

The government said 320,000 survivors of the devastating rains unleashed by tropical storm Ketsana on Saturday were sheltering in hundreds of centres, while nearly 250,000 others were receiving some form of aid elsewhere.

President Gloria Arroyo described the floods as a "once-in-a-lifetime" event, and in an extraordinary move opened the Malacanang presidential palace to flood survivors.

After word of the offer spread, hundreds of people converged on the palace and received plastic bags filled with noodles and canned sardines.

"We just heard it in the news that they are giving relief goods at the palace so we walked for one hour," said street sweeper Rosette Serrano, 31, who lost everything but her clothes when her house was submerged on Saturday.

However, officials said people would only be allowed to stay inside the presidential compound and shelter there after vetting by aid organisations.

"We cannot just allow every evacuee in because of logistical and security problems," Wilfredo Oca, an aide to Arroyo, told AFP.

The death toll jumped significantly after authorities finally started to record those killed in Manila, and not just the neighbouring regions.

The latest toll of 246 was over 100 more than Monday's assessment.

The government said 101 people had been confirmed killed in the capital, up from seven on Monday.

Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who is leading the relief effort, said he did not expect another similar spike in the death toll.

A more comprehensive assessment of the economic damage was also formed on Tuesday with the government saying the storm could shave 0.1 percentage points from gross domestic product growth this year.

The forecast growth range may fall from 0.8-1.8 percent to 0.7-1.7 percent, although the government said it was hoping extra funds from Filipinos working overseas would offset the storm's economic impact.

After admitting it could not cope on its own, the government on Monday appealed to the international community for help.

By Tuesday tonnes of food aid as well as foreign experts were on their way to the Philippines.

"Almost 80 percent of health centres in Manila have been destroyed and in the east of the city the ground is covered by 30 centimetres (12 inches) of mud," said Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"The priority is to distribute food and medicines for the homeless and others crowded into public buildings and churches."

Among the first nations to respond, Australia, the United States, France and Japan said they had either sent or pledged support for relief efforts.

Australia offered the biggest donation, of up to one million Australian dollars (874,920 US) in aid, which would include emergency supplies of drinking water, clothing and hygiene kits.

Even Vietnam, across the South China Sea from the Philippines, pledged rice aid as it braced for its own encounter with Ketsana, which strengthened to a typhoon after devastating Manila and surrounding areas.

Ketsana killed at least 22 people after it slammed into central Vietnam on Tuesday, and caused almost 170,000 people there to flee their homes.

The World Meteorological Organisation said in Geneva a new tropical depression had formed east of the Philippines Tuesday, although it was too soon to predict whether it would form a cycle that would reach the archipelago.

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