Almost 200 inmates of a Philippine jail damaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan bolted the prison on Thursday, the second mass jailbreak since the storm, the jail warden said.

Police soon rounded up 147 of the 185 who escaped the jail in the storm-ravaged island of Leyte but 38 remain at large, said jail warden Merly Vertulfo.

The inmates had used a sharpened iron bar to force a guard to let them out, said Vertulfo.

He said the recaptured inmates justified their escape, saying they were not getting enough food or shelter after Haiyan struck in November and ripped off much of the jail's roof.

"They are also insisting their cases are over because the hall of judicial records was washed out," he added.

The typhoon left about 8,000 dead or missing and flattened whole towns in Leyte and nearby islands, isolating communities and leaving them short of supplies.

Soon after the typhoon hit, nearly 600 detainees at the same provincial jail escaped but half of them later returned, saying they only fled to help their families.