Around 24,000 coastal residents of the Philippines were being evacuated as a precaution from approaching Tropical Storm Maysak on Saturday, officials said, even as experts downgraded the threat from what was at one point a super typhoon.

Maysak, which days earlier hit several small islands in the Pacific Ocean, has weakened into a 115-kilometer (71-mile) an hour storm, state weather forecaster Jun Galang told AFP.

Residents in storm wrecked areas of Micronesia appealed for help Thursday as a clean up began on the worst affected islands after Super Typhoon Maysak swept through the region on its way towards the Philippines.

"We can do with all the help we can get," Courtney Stinnett at the Truk Stop Hotel dive shop on the main island of Weno in Chuuk state told Agence France Presse.

Residents of the Micronesian State of Chuuk were struggling to clear the roads of huge pieces of debris and return to damaged homes Wednesday as Super Typhoon Maysak cut a destructive path across the central Pacific leaving at least five dead.

Crops were ruined and water supplies contaminated, with fears people faced starvation if they did not receive aid soon, after the violent storm took three days to cross the vast Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).