Taipei  - A US military transport plane carrying relief supplies for Taiwan, where floods and mudslides killed hundreds last week, briefly landed on the island Sunday.

The plane - the first US military aircraft to arrive on the island since Washington broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan 30 years ago - quickly left after it unloaded its cargo of seven tonnes of plastic tarpaulin, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said.

The US and Taiwanese governments have played down the US relief efforts in deference to Beijing, which has warned Washington off official contact with Taiwan. Sunday's delivery took place in roughly half an hour, the Taiwanese Defence Ministry said.

Countries and relief organisations around the world have launched a massive relief effort after Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island last week, leaving at least 124 people dead and 64 others missing in mudslides and flooding.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has estimated that as many as 500 people may have been killed when mudslides swallowed villages and knocked out bridges and roads.

"Sorry we're late," he told flood victims in the southern county of Pingtung.

Ma has been under fire from the public and the parliament for what critics charge has been a slow relief effort worsened the humanitarian disaster.

As many as 4,000 people may still be stranded, a week after the island's deadliest typhoon in half a century, and in some areas survivors are giving up the search for their missing neighbours.

"It is useless to continue to dig through tonnes of mud and rocks for the missing people," a man from the devastated village of Hsiaolin told the news channel TVBS. (dpa)