The government in Venezuela has acknowledged that the impact of flooding affecting the country's northern coastal region is far more serious than expected.

President Hugo Chavez said more than 500 bodies had been recovered on Venzuela's Caribbean coastal strip alone.

A further 50, he said, had been picked up at sea by a navy ship.

100 bodies have been recovered in the capital, Caracas, bringing the latest official death toll to 650.

The final figure is expected to be much larger.

Thousands missing

Earlier, foreign minister Jose Rangel said about 150,000 people had been left homeless.

Some 7,000 people are still reported missing.

Nine northern states and the capital have been declared disaster areas and many remain accessible only by helicopter.

Most banks, businesses and government offices in the country remain closed. Power supplies, phone networks and fresh water supplies have been disrupted.

Volunteers

Twenty-five countries have offered help.

Three Blackhawk helicopters from the US arrived on Friday. Cuba is sending a medical team and Mexico has sent four planes carrying 200 disaster relief experts.

And a BBC correspondent in Caracas says hundreds Venezuelans, who escaped the worst of the water and mudslides, have come forward to volunteer their help.

Transport - both for the injured and for the medical and food supplies - is becoming the biggest problem.

Unseasonal heavy rains drenched Venezuela's Caribbean coast for 10 days turning normally tiny streams into raging walls of water.

Poorly-constructed shanty town homes were swept away as rivers burst their banks and sodden hillside ground gave way.