Officials are warning that the damage is likely to be the worst in the nation's history.

Cho Soon-sung, adviser to South Korea's ruling Millennium Democratic party, told the BBC that the clean-up was expected to take at least a month.

The death toll from the storm is expected to rise as searches continue, warned Kim Jin-young, a director at the National Disaster Prevention Headquarters.

South Korea's cable network YTN said 215 people were feared to have perished - victims of floods, landslides and collapsing buildings.

North Korea also reported heavy human losses, with the country's official media - the Korean Central News Agency - saying that "scores" of people were killed.

Infrastructure damaged

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung called an emergency cabinet meeting to put the government on disaster alert as the country struggled to cope with the effects of the typhoon.

Government adviser Mr Cho told the BBC that the typhoon had done enormous damage to the country's infrastructure, including the road and rail systems and the telecommunications network.

Tens of thousands of people were without electricity after floodwaters and mudslides cut the supplies.

The southern city of Busan faces the additional problems of having to clear up before the Asian Olympics, due to begin at the end of September.

Several sports facilities, including part of a field hockey stadium, were severely damaged, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Rusa, the Malaysian word for deer, is the most powerful storm to hit the Korean peninsula since Typhoon Sarah in 1959, which left more than 840 dead or missing.

South Korea's anti-disaster centre estimated $700m-worth of property damage.

'Hell on earth'

The eastern port city of Kangnung was one of the worst-hit areas.

The BBC's Caroline Gluck said it had been almost totally submerged, with water reaching the roofs of houses.

Landslides there buried buildings and cars and pedestrians waded through waist-high water.

"This is a hell on earth," 54-year-old housewife Kim Jung-ok told AP as she shovelled mud out of her living room.