Emergency relief officials and doctors deployed to flood devastated communities in the Philippines Sunday to prevent outbreaks of disease as the death toll jumped to 85.

The flooding that submerged 80 percent of Manila early in the week has largely subsided but more than 150 towns and cities around the capital remain under water, affecting more than three million people.

Thousands more Philippine flood survivors crammed into evacuation centers on Friday as waist-high water covered vast farming regions and the death toll from a week of misery rose to 60.

The flooding that submerged 80 percent of Manila early in the week had largely subsided, allowing people to return to their homes, but vital rice-growing areas to the north remained submerged as more rain fell there.

More than a million people in and around the Philippine capital battled deadly floods Wednesday as more monsoon rain fell, with neck-deep waters trapping both slum dwellers and the wealthy on rooftops.

Sixty percent of Manila remained under water and vast tracts of surrounding farmland were also submerged as the deluge stretched into its third day, according to the government.

At least fifteen people were killed and several were missing as torrential rains brought the Philippine capital to a standstill Tuesday, with floodwaters covering half the sprawling city, officials said.

More than 20,000 people fled their homes due to the rising waters while a deadly landslide buried four houses in a Manila suburb, police said.

Filipino workers trying to flee the unrest in Syria are being charged up to $10,000 by their employers before they can leave, the foreign department in Manila said on Tuesday.

Syrian employers are demanding that they be refunded large amounts they paid for the deployment of Philippine staff, foreign department spokesman Raul Hernandez told reporters.

Philippine authorities have sacked a policeman who tried to cut in front of a vehicle carrying President Benigno Aquino in a motorcade, officials said Tuesday.

Presidential guards took officer Ricardo Pascua into custody and turned him over to his superiors who fired him after the incident in a Manila suburb on Monday, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of the main Philippine island of Luzon Sunday, U.S. seismologists said, but there were no reports of casualties and no tsunami alert was issued.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 35 kilometers (22 miles) at 6:18 am (2218 GMT Saturday), 182 km northwest of the capital Manila.

Lady Gaga will be allowed to hold a second concert in Manila on Tuesday night after state censors ruled her "provocative" act was within legal bounds, a city official said.

Officials who monitored the first show on Monday found no violations of the permit terms banning nudity, blasphemy, and lewd conduct, said Antonino Calixto, mayor of Pasay City, the district where the event was held.

The Philippine army said it killed three senior leaders from the al-Qaida linked Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah militant organizations in an air raid on a remote southern island on Thursday.

The three were among 15 militants killed on Jolo, a jungle-infested island where Abu Sayyaf members are suspected to be holding kidnapped foreigners, regional military commander Major General Noel Coballes told Agence France Presse by phone.

A human sea of Catholic pilgrims flooded the Philippine capital on Monday in a show of religious frenzy, despite warnings that Islamic militants may be planning to bomb the spectacular annual event.

Police estimated up to eight million people crammed into the historic quarters of Manila seeking to touch the "Black Nazarene," a centuries-old and life-size icon of Jesus Christ that is believed to hold miraculous powers.