Clothes are hung to dry on a roof as floodwaters continue to inundate the township of Santa Cruz in the Philippine province of Laguna, on Monday. Typhoon Parma weakened into a tropical storm that lingered off the Philippine coast Monday. (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)Typhoon Parma weakened to a tropical storm on Monday but continued to threaten the northern coast of the Philippines, where powerful landslides from heavy rainfall killed 16 people over the weekend.

The storm also churned up waters off the coast in the Taiwan Strait, sinking a Panamanian cargo ship off neighbouring Taiwan and leaving 10 crew members missing, according to the Taiwanese coast guard.

Philippine forecasters said Parma headed northwest into the South China Sea after blowing across the country's north, which was already reeling after an earlier storm killed almost 300 people.

Parma was lingering because another storm — Typhoon Melor — was pulling it back towards the coast, said chief Philippine government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz.

Melor is too far north to affect the Philippines and is expected to blow toward southern Japan. But its presence raises the possibility that Parma might return to the north shore of the Philippines and bring more rain.

Residents make their way through flood waters in Taytay township, east of Manila, on Saturday. (Wally Santana/Associated Press)

Parma was located 220 kilometres off northern Laoag city, packing winds of 105 km/h and gusts of up to 135 km/h.

Manila, the country's capital, escaped the worst of the storm after bearing the brunt of Typhoon Ketsana, which killed at least 288 people in the Philippines and damaged the homes of three million.

Ketsana also left a trail of devastation throughout other countries in Southeast Asia, killing 162 in Vittnam, 18 in Cambodia and at least 16 in Laos.

Taiwan has so far been spared the full brunt of Parma, but still received heavy rains, with the Central Weather Bureau reporting 746 millimetres of precipitation in the eastern county of Yilan since Sunday.

With files from the Associated Press