Manila, Philippines ? Typhoon Durian tore through the eastern Philippines on Thursday with winds of up to 139 mph, killing at least 109 people and cutting off power to thousands of homes, officials said.

Dozens of people were missing, and 200 body bags were being shipped to the disaster zone at the request of provincial officials.

With power and phone lines downed by powerful winds, helicopters were carrying out aerial surveillance of cut off areas.

“Our rescue teams are overstretched rescuing people on rooftops,” said Glen Rabonza, head of the national Office of Civil Defense.

Fernando Gonzales, governor of badly hit Albay province, said 108 bodies had been found but that recovery operations were continuing. The figure did not include at least one person killed in adjacent Camarines Sur province, which reported that its capital was flattened.

Undersecretary Dr. Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology said the storm was particularly damaging because wind gusts hit 165 mph when Durian came ashore Thursday in Catanduanes, an island province with no mountains to break the storm’s momentum.

“So it really destroyed the island that it hit,” Yumul said. “That is the reason you are seeing the kind of destruction you are seeing right now.”

A mudslide swept down on the village of Padang at the foot of the Mayon volcano, and at least 20 bodies were recovered there, said Noel Rosal, mayor of Legazpi city, capital of badly hit Albay province.

Residents watch as workers clear fallen trees from a road today in Candelaria, Quezon province, after super typhoon Durian lashed the Philippines' main island of Luzon in central and northeastern Philippines overnight, killing more than 100 people.

“It’s terrible,” he told The Associated Press by phone after visiting the village today. “Based on our interviews with residents and village officials, more than 100 were killed or missing.”

Some victims had their clothes ripped off as they were swept away, he said.

Elsewhere in Albay, 26 people were killed in Santo Domingo and 13 were missing, while another nine deaths were reported in the town of Daraga, said Jukes Nunez of the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council.

About 30 people were injured by boulders and roofing materials in Padang and taken to hospitals, Rosal said.

Jukes Nunez of the Albay Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council said many parts of Legazpi still were flooded this morning.

“The request for rescue is overwhelming,” he said. “The disaster managers are victims themselves.”