Typhoon Haiyan - 10,000 killed

Devastating storm kills at least 10,000

Corpses hung from trees, were scattered on footpaths or buried in flattened buildings - some of the 10,000 people believed killed in one Philippine city alone by ferocious Typhoon Haiyan

Stuff,

11 November, 2013

As the scale of devastation became clear from one of the worst storms ever recorded, officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach parts of the archipelago cut off by flooding and landslides. Looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water as the government began relief efforts and international aid operations got under way.

Even in a nation regularly beset by earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical storms, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.

Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines on Friday and quickly barrelled across its central islands, packing winds of 235 kmh (147 mph) that gusted to 275 kmh (170 mph), and a storm surge of 6 metres (20 feet).

Its sustained winds weakened to 133 kmh (83 mph) as it crossed the South China Sea before approaching northern Vietnam, where it was forecast to hit land early today. Authorities there evacuated hundreds of thousands of people.

Hardest hit in the Philippines was Leyte Island, where officials said there may be 10,000 dead in the provincial capital of Tacloban alone. Reports also trickled in from elsewhere on the island, as well as from neighbouring islands, indicating hundreds more deaths, although it will be days before the full extent of the storm can be assessed.

"On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street," said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila, about 580 kilometres (360 miles) to the northwest. "They were covered with just anything - tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboard." She said she passed "well over 100" bodies.

In one part of Tacloban, a ship had been pushed ashore and sat amid damaged homes.

Haiyan inflicted serious damage to at least six of the archipelago's more than 7000 islands, with Leyte, neighbouring Samar Island, and the northern part of Cebu appearing to bear the brunt of the storm. About 4 million people were affected by the storm, the national disaster agency said.

On Leyte, regional Police Chief Elmer Soria said the provincial governor had told him there were about 10,000 deaths there, primarily from drowning and collapsed buildings. Most were in Tacloban, a city of about 200,000 that is the biggest on the island.

On Samar, Leo Dacaynos of the provincial disaster office said 300 people were confirmed dead in one town and another 2000 were missing, with some towns yet to be reached by rescuers. He pleaded for food and water, adding that power was out and there was no cellphone signal, making communication possible only by radio.

Reports from other affected islands indicated dozens, perhaps hundreds more deaths.

Video from Eastern Samar province's Guiuan township - the first area where the typhoon made landfall - showed a trail of devastation. Many houses were flattened and roads were strewn with debris and uprooted trees. The ABS-CBN video showed several bodies on the street, covered with blankets.

"Even me, I have no house, I have no clothes. I don't know how I will restart my life, I am so confused," an unidentified woman said, crying. "I don't know what happened to us. We are appealing for help. Whoever has a good heart, I appeal to you - please help Guiuan."

The Philippine National Red Cross said its efforts were hampered by looters, including some who attacked trucks of food and other relief supplies it was shipping to Tacloban from the southern port of Davao.

Tacloban's two largest malls and grocery stores were looted, and police guarded a fuel depot. About 200 police officers were sent into Tacloban to restore law and order.

With other rampant looting reported, President Benigno Aquino III said he was considering declaring a state of emergency or martial law in Tacloban. A state of emergency usually includes curfews, price and food supply controls, military or police checkpoints and increased security patrols.

The massive casualties occurred even though the government had evacuated nearly 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon.

Aquino flew around Leyte by helicopter yesterday and landed in Tacloban. He said the government's priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and deliver relief and medical assistance.

Challenged to respond to a disaster of such magnitude, the Philippine government also accepted help from abroad.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel directed the Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support search-and-rescue operations and fly in emergency supplies.

The United Nations said relief operations have begun but that access remained a challenge because some areas are still cut off.

Pope Francis led tens of thousands of people at the Vatican in prayer for the victims. The Philippines has the largest number of Catholics in Asia, and Filipinos are one of Rome's biggest immigrant communities.

The Philippines is annually buffeted by tropical storms and typhoons, which are called hurricanes and cyclones elsewhere. The nation is in the northwestern Pacific, right in the path of the world's No 1 typhoon generator, according to meteorologists. The archipelago's exposed eastern seaboard often bears the brunt.

Even by the standards of the Philippines, however, Haiyan is a catastrophe of epic proportions and has shocked the impoverished and densely populated nation of 96 million people. Its winds were among the strongest ever recorded, and it appears to have killed many more people than the previous deadliest Philippine storm, Thelma, in which about 5100 people died in the central Philippines in 1991.

The country's deadliest disaster on record was the 1976 magnitude-7.9 earthquake that triggered a tsunami in the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines, killing 5791 people.

Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was "speechless" when he told him of the devastation in Tacloban.

"I told him all systems are down," Gazmin said. "There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They're looting."

Tacloban, in the east-central Philippines, is near the Red Beach on Leyte Island where US General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore in 1944 during World War II and fulfilled his famous pledge: "I shall return."

It was the first city liberated from the Japanese by US and Filipino forces and served as the Philippines' temporary capital for several months. It is also the hometown of former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, whose nephew, Alfred Romualdez, is the city's mayor.

One Tacloban resident said he and others took refuge inside a Jeep, but the vehicle was picked up 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 eight-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 were strewn along the muddy main road as now-homeless residents huddled with the few possessions they managed to save. The road was lined with toppled trees.

UNICEF estimated that 1.7 million children live in areas affected by the typhoon, according to the agency's representative in the Philippines, Tomoo Hozumi. UNICEF's supply division in Copenhagen was loading 60 metric tons of relief supplies for an emergency airlift expected to arrive in the Philippines tomorrow.

"The devastation is ... I don't have the words for it," Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said. "It's really horrific. It's a great human tragedy."

In Vietnam, about 600,000 people living in the central region who had been evacuated returned to their homes yesterday after a weakened Haiyan changed directions and took aim at the country's north.

Four people in three central Vietnamese provinces died while trying to reinforce their homes for the storm, the national floods and storms control department said.

Typhoon warning: Vietnam evacuates 600,000 in fear of Haiyan devastation

As super-typhoon Haiyan has left some 10,000 dead in the Philippines, over 600,000 people have been evacuated as it approaches Vietnam. “Those who do not move voluntarily will be forced” to move, Vietnam’s flood and storm control department said

Residents prepare sand bags to reinforce a sea dyke in the central province of Phu Yen on November 9, 2013. Vietnam has started evacuating over 100,000 people from the path of Super Typhoon Haiyan, state media said on November 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / Vietnam News Agency )Residents prepare sand bags to reinforce a sea dyke in the central province of Phu Yen on November 9, 2013. Vietnam has started evacuating over 100,000 people from the path of Super Typhoon Haiyan, state media said on November 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / Vietnam News Agency )

RT,

10 November, 2013

Vietnam is preparing its defenses after the storm annihilated the Philippines over the weekend, leaving thousands dead and a trail of devastation through Tacloban, the capital of Leyte province.

Haiyan destroyed 70 percent to 80 percent of the area as it ripped through the province Friday, police chief superintendent Elmer Soria told Reuters. Aid workers are only now beginning to gain access to affected areas.

The appropriate measures are being taken in Vietnam before the typhoon strikes. “We have evacuated more than 174,000 households, which is equivalent to more than 600,000 people,” the storm department said Sunday.

Mass evacuations are taking place in the central Da Nang and Quang Ngai provinces. Numerous schools have closed nationwide as people move to higher ground, and some shelters are “overloaded,” according to state-run VNExpress.

“People must bring enough food and necessities for three days,” the report said. All boats have been grounded, with tens of thousands of those directed to take shelter situated in coastal areas. Residents of Hanoi are also preparing themselves for heavy rain and floods. The storm has already been blamed for the drowning of a school girl in the central Thua Thien Hue Province.

A soldier assists a young girl as villagers are evacuated to a safe place by a military truck in preparation for the arrival of the super typhoon Haiyan in the central province of Quang Nam on November 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / STR)A soldier assists a young girl as villagers are evacuated to a safe place by a military truck in preparation for the arrival of the super typhoon Haiyan in the central province of Quang Nam on November 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / STR)

The announcement follows new reports that the storm is changing its course. It is now anticipated to pummel the country on Monday at 7am, after moving in a north-to-northwesterly direction at a speed of around 35 kilometers an hour, according to the Vietnamese weather bureau. Upon landfall, it will have gathered winds of around 74 kilometers an hour.

The Red Cross stated that the change of direction meant that the disaster area “could be enlarged from nine provinces to as many as 15,” according to a statement released to AFP.

However, some 200,000 people evacuated from the southern central provinces have been permitted to return to their homes as they are no longer at risk, according to a governmental report published on their website.

By Sunday afternoon, the typhoon had already battered Vietnam's Con Co Island, where its 250 inhabitants were relocated to underground shelters containing food supplies for several days. The storm brought with it three-meter high waves, according to Vietnamese newspaper, Tuoi Tre.

Haiyan is one of the world’s most powerful-ever storms, based on its recorded wind speed, which at landfall was 195 miles per hour, with gusts as much as 235 miles per hour. It is thought to have been even stronger than Hurricane Camille, which caused devastation in the US in 1969

Philippine typhoon kills at least 10,000, survivors 'walk like zombies'

Times of India,

10 November, 2013

TACLOBAN, Philippines: One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away entire coastal villages and devastating the region's main city.

Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria.

As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food as supplies dwindled or searched for lost loved ones.

"People are walking like zombies looking for food," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. "It's like a movie."

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, levelling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.

The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 killed by a storm whose sustained winds reached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph (378 kph).

"We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Soria said. "The devastation is so big."

More than 330,900 people were displaced and 4.3 million "affected" by the typhoon in 36 provinces, the UN's humanitarian agency said, as relief agencies called for food, water and tarpaulins for the homeless.

Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte's capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila, with hundreds of bodies piled on the sides of roads and pinned under wrecked houses.

The city lies in a cove where the seawater narrows, making it susceptible to storm surges.

The city and nearby villages as far as one kilometre (just over half a mile) from shore were flooded, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes. TV footage showed children clinging to rooftops for their lives.

Many internet users urged prayers and called for aid for survivors in the largely Roman Catholic nation on social media sites such as Twitter.

"From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometre inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami," said interior secretary Manuel Roxas, who had been in Tacloban since before the typhoon struck the city.

"I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."

Looters take what they can

Mila Ward, an Australian citizen and Filipino by birth who was in Leyte on vacation visiting her family, said she saw hundreds of bodies on the streets.

"They were covered with blankets, plastic. There were children and women," she said.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said aerial surveys showed "significant damage to coastal areas with heavy ships thrown to the shore, many houses destroyed and vast tracts of agricultural land decimated".

The destruction extended well beyond Tacloban. Officials had yet to make contact with Guiuan, a town of 40,000 that was first hit by the typhoon. Baco, a city of 35,000 people in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80 percent under water, the UN said.

There were reports of damage across much of the Visayas, a region of eight major islands, including Leyte, Cebu and Samar.

Many tourists were stranded. "Seawater reached the second floor of the hotel," said Nancy Chang, who was on a business trip from China in Tacloblan City and walked three hours through mud and debris for a military-led evacuation at the airport.

"It's like the end of the world."

Six people were killed and dozens wounded during heavy winds and storms in central Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially since hitting the Philippines.

Vietnam authorities have moved 883,000 people in 11 central provinces to safe zones, according to the government's website. Despite weakening, the storm is likely to cause heavy rains, flooding, strong winds and mudslides as it makes its way north in the South China Sea.

Looters rampaged through several stores in Tacloban, witnesses said, taking whatever they could find as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water were hampered by severed roads and communications.

Mobs attacked trucks loaded with food, tents and water on Tanauan bridge in Leyte, said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon. "These are mobsters operating out of there."

Tecson John Lim, the Tacloban city administrator, said city officials had so far only collected 300-400 bodies, but believed the death toll in the city alone could be 10,000.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

The World Food Programme said it was airlifting 40 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, enough to feed 120,000 people for a day, as well as emergency supplies and telecommunications equipment.

Tacloban city airport was all but destroyed as seawaters swept through the city, shattering the glass of the airport tower, levelling the terminal and overturning nearby vehicles.

A Reuters reporter saw five bodies inside a chapel near the airport, placed on pews. Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four metres (13 feet).

"It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport," he said. "Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided."