ANTANANARIVO - A violent tropical storm battered Madagascar's eastern coastline killing at least 14 people and leaving thousands more homeless, the government said on Friday.

The National Office for Risk and Catastrophe Management (BNGRC) said in a statement that tropical storm Hubert destroyed more than 500 homes and left people salvaging what they could from thousands of other flooded properties.

Louis de Gonzague Rakotonirainy, secretary general of the BNGRC, said it was sending 50 tonnes of rice to affected regions.

The world's fourth largest island, where major multinational companies are exploiting oil, cobalt, nickel and uranium deposits, lies in a cyclone belt in the southwestern Indian Ocean and is hit most years.

Madagascar is reeling from the effects of a year-long political crisis which has sharply slowed foreign direct investment and curbed economic growth.