Part of a hill collapsed on a rural home near Tacloban city on Leyte island

before dawn, killing the seven, said local police chief Senior Superintendent Wilson Caubat.

About 32 centimetres (12 inches) of rain had fallen on the region in two days, plunging some areas of the city of 200,000 people under waist deep water

that had not subsided by late Thursday morning, Caubat said.There have been no other reported casualties, he said.

The state weather service has predicted a wetter than usual first half of the year in the Philippines due to cyclical temperature shifts of surface water in the Pacific Ocean.