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| Tacloban Airport is covered by debris after powerful Typhoon Haiyan hit Tacloban city, in Leyte province in central Philippines, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. Rescuers in the central Philippines counted at least 100 people dead and many more injured Saturday, a day after one of the most powerful typhoons on record ripped through the region, wiping away buildings and leveling seaside homes with massive storm surges. |
TACLOBAN,
Philippines (AP) -- The central Philippine city of Tacloban was in
ruins after being ravaged by one of the strongest typhoons on record, as
horrified residents spoke of storm surges as high as trees and
authorities said they were expecting a "very high number of fatalities."
At
least 151 people were confirmed dead in the aftermath of Typhoon
Haiyan. But Philippine Red Cross Secretary General Gwen Pang said that
agency field staff in the region estimated the toll was about 1,000.
Pang, however, emphasized that it was "just an estimate."
The
typhoon slammed into six central Philippine islands on Friday, wiping
away buildings and leveling seaside homes. At least 134 of the confirmed
deaths were on hardest-hit Leyte Island, where Tacloban is located,
said national disaster agency spokesman Maj. Reynaldo Balido.
But
after arriving in Tacloban on Saturday, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas
said it was too early to know how many people had died in the typhoon.
It weakened Sunday as it approached central and northern Vietnam where
authorities evacuated more than 500,000 people.
"The
rescue operation is ongoing. We expect a very high number of fatalities
as well as injured," Roxas said. "All systems, all vestiges of modern
living - communications, power, water - all are down. Media is down, so
there is no way to communicate with the people in a mass sort of way."
President
Benigno Aquino III said the casualties "will be substantially more,"
but gave no figure or estimate. He said the government's priority was to
restore power and communications in isolated areas to allow for the
delivery of relief and medical assistance to victims.
The
Philippine Red Cross and its partners were preparing for a major relief
effort "because of the magnitude of the disaster," said the agency's
chairman, Richard Gordon.
The airport in
Tacloban, a city of 200,000 located about 580 kilometers (360 miles)
southeast of Manila, looked like a muddy wasteland of debris Saturday,
with crumpled tin roofs and upturned cars. The airport tower's glass
windows were shattered, and air force helicopters were busy flying in
and out at the start of relief operations.
"The devastation is, I don't have the words for it," Roxas said. "It's really horrific. It's a great human tragedy."
Defense
Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was "speechless" when he told him
of the devastation the typhoon had wrought in Tacloban.
"I told him all systems are down," Gazmin said. "There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They're looting."
U.S.
Marine Col. Mike Wylie surveyed the damage in Tacloban prior to
possible American assistance. "The storm surge came in fairly high and
there is significant structural damage and trees blown over," said
Wylie, who is a member of the U.S.-Philippines Military Assistance Group
based in Manila.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement that America "stands ready to help."
At
the request of the Philippine government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
directed U.S. Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support
search-and-rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies, according
to a statement released by the Defense Department press office.
Tacloban
is near the Red Beach on Leyte Island where U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur
waded ashore on October 20, 1944, fulfilling his famous pledge, "I
shall return," made in March 1942 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt
ordered him to relocate to Australia as Japanese forces pushed back U.S.
and Filipino defenders.
Tacloban was the
first city to be liberated by U.S. and Filipino forces and served as the
Philippines' temporary capital for several months. It is also the home
town of former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, whose nephew, Alfred
Romualdez, is the city's mayor.
The president
of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said in a message to
Aquino that the EC had sent a team to assist the Philippine authorities
and that "we stand ready to contribute with urgent relief and assistance
if so required in this hour of need."
Weather
officials said Haiyan had sustained winds of 235 kilometers per hour
(147 miles per hour), with gusts of 275 kph (170 mph), when it made
landfall. By those measurements, Haiyan would be comparable to a strong
Category 4 hurricane in the U.S., and nearly in the top category, a 5.
Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are the same, but have different names in different parts of the world.
One
Tacloban resident said he and others took refuge inside a parked Jeep
to protect themselves from the storm, but the vehicle was swept away by a
surging wall of water.
"The water was as high
as a coconut tree," said 44-year-old Sandy Torotoro, a bicycle taxi
driver who lives near the airport with his wife and 8-year-old daughter.
"I got out of the Jeep and I was swept away by the rampaging water with
logs, trees and our house, which was ripped off from its mooring."
"When
we were being swept by the water, many people were floating and raising
their hands and yelling for help. But what can we do? We also needed to
be helped," Torotoro said.
In Torotoro's
village, bodies could be seen lying along the muddy main road, as
residents who had lost their homes huddled, holding on to the few things
they had managed to save. The road was lined with trees that had fallen
to the ground.
Vice Mayor Jim Pe of Coron
town on Busuanga, the last island battered by the typhoon before it blew
away to the South China Sea, said most of the houses and buildings
there had been destroyed or damaged. Five people drowned in the storm
surge and three others were missing, he said by phone.
"It
was like a 747 flying just above my roof," he said, describing the
sound of the winds. He said his family and some of his neighbors whose
houses were destroyed took shelter in his basement.
Philippine
broadcaster ABS-CBN showed fierce winds whipping buildings and vehicles
as storm surges swamped Tacloban with debris-laden floodwaters.
In
the aftermath of the typhoon, people were seen weeping while retrieving
bodies of loved ones inside buildings and on a street that was littered
with fallen trees, roofing material and other building parts torn off
in the storm's fury. All that was left of one large building whose walls
were smashed in were the skeletal remains of its rafters.
Many
packed evacuation centers collapsed in Tacloban as the typhoon raged, a
police official said. He said he saw a popular mall being looted
Saturday by residents who carted away anything they can lay their hands
on, including a flat-screen TV, a small refrigerator, food items,
clothes and even a Christmas tree. Smaller shops with guards brandishing
their pistols were spared, said the official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
ABS-CBN
television anchor Ted Failon, who was able to report only briefly
Friday from Tacloban, said the storm surge was "like the tsunami in
Japan."
"The sea engulfed Tacloban," he said,
explaining that a major part of the city is surrounded on three sides by
the waters between Leyte and Samar islands.
The
Philippine television station GMA reported that its news team saw 11
bodies, including that of a child, washed ashore Friday and 20 more
bodies at a pier in Tacloban hours after the typhoon ripped through the
coastal city.
At least 20 more bodies were
taken to a church in nearby Palo town that was used as an evacuation
center but had to be abandoned when its roofs were blown away, the TV
network reported. TV images showed howling winds peeling off tin roof
sheets during heavy rain.
Ferocious winds
felled large branches and snapped coconut trees. A man was shown
carrying the body of his 6-year-old daughter who had drowned, and
another image showed vehicles piled up in debris.
Relief
workers said they were struggling to find ways to deliver food and
other supplies, with roads blocked by landslides and fallen trees.
Tim
Ticar, a local tourism officer, said 6,000 foreign and local tourists
were stranded on the popular resort island of Boracay, one of the
tourist spots in the typhoon's path.
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered his condolences and said U.N.
humanitarian agencies were working closely with the Philippine
government to respond rapidly with emergency assistance, according to a
statement released by the U.N. spokesperson's office.
UNICEF
estimated that about 1.7 million children are living in areas impacted
by the typhoon, according to the agency's representative in the
Philippines Tomoo Hozumi. UNICEF's supply division in Copenhagen was
loading 60 metric tonnes of relief supplies for an emergency airlift
expected to arrive in the Philippines on Tuesday.
The
storm's sustained winds weakened Saturday to 163 kph (101 mph) with
stronger gusts as it blew farther away from the Philippines toward
Vietnam.
Haiyan was forecast to hit central
Vietnam's coast on Sunday afternoon, making its way to the northern part
of the country before likely weakening to a tropical storm.
Vietnamese
authorities in four central provinces were evacuating more than 500,000
people from high-risk areas to government buildings, schools and other
concrete homes able to withstand strong winds.
"The
evacuation is being conducted with urgency," disaster official Nguyen
Thi Yen Linh said from central Danang City, where some 76,000 were being
moved to safety.
Hundreds of thousands of
others were being taken to shelters in the provinces of Quang Ngai,
Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue. Schools were closed and two deputy prime
ministers were sent to the region to direct the preparations.
