| CNN | - |
Tacloban,
Philippines (CNN) -- A day after Super Typhoon Haiyan roared into the
Philippines, officials predicted that the death toll could reach 1,200
-- or more.
Death toll likely exceeds 1,000 after typhoon slams Philippines
updated 11:48 AM EST, Sat November 9, 2013
Fallen trees litter the ground at
the Tacloban airport in the Philippines in the aftermath of Super
Typhoon Haiyan on Saturday, November 9. The most powerful cyclone in
three decades battered the Philippines, killing a number of people and
leaving more than 100 bodies scattered on the streets of this coastal
city. Haiyan, one of the most intense typhoons on record, plowed across
the country on Friday, with monster winds tearing roofs off buildings
and giant waves washing away homes.
HIDE CAPTION
Super Typhoon Haiyan
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- People died in evacuation centers, too, says Red Cross chairman
- The typhoon is headed toward Vietnam and could land Sunday morning
- Shell-shocked Filipinos are looking for food and water
- Officials say the number of casualties is expected to go up
"We estimate 1,000 people
were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province," Gwendolyn Pang,
secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, said of two coastal areas
where Haiyan hit first as it began its march Friday across the
archipelago.
The Red Cross said it would have more precise numbers Sunday.
The government's official toll as of Saturday evening was 138 dead, 14 injured and four missing.
But experts predicted
that it will take days to get the full scope of the damage wrought by a
typhoon described as one of the strongest to make landfall in recorded
history.
"Probably the casualty
figure will increase as we get more information from remote areas, which
have been cut off from communications," said Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF's
Philippines representative.
The casualties from the
storm, which affected 4.3 million people in 36 provinces, occurred
despite preparations that included the evacuation of more than 800,000
people, he said.
On Saturday, more than
330,000 people were still in 1,223 evacuation centers, and the
government had accepted a U.N. offer of international aid.
The National Risk
Reduction and Management Council said more than 70,000 families were
affected, and nearly 350,000 people were displaced -- inside and outside
evacuation centers. Thousands of houses were destroyed, it said.
Tacloban hardest hit
Tacloban suffered the
greatest devastation, said Lt. Jim Aris Alago, information officer for
Navy Central Command. "There are numbers of undetermined casualties
found along the roads."
High death count feared in Philippines
Typhoon Haiyan one of the biggest ever
Super typhoon's financial impact
Super typhoon to leave areas uninhabited
Officials found more than 100 bodies scattered on the streets of the coastal city.
"We expect the greatest
number of casualties there," Alago said, adding that 100 body bags had
been sent to the area. People were wading through waist-high water, and
overturned vehicles, downed utility poles and trees were blocking roads
and delaying the aid effort.
Mobile services were down, and officials were relying on radios.
Another 100 residents in
this city of 220,000 residents were injured, said Capt. John Andrews,
deputy director of the national Civil Aviation Authority.
Roofs and windows were
blown off and out of many of the buildings left standing. Rescue crews
were handing out ready-to-eat meals, clothing, blankets, medicine and
water, Alago said.
But the speed of the
storm -- which was clocked at 41 mph -- meant residents didn't have to
hunker down long. Many emerged Saturday from their homes and shelters
and trekked through streets littered with debris to supermarkets,
looking for water and food. Several bodies were found at a chapel; a
woman wept over one.
The Philippine Red Cross
succeeded in getting its assessment team in to Tacloban but had not
managed to get its main team of aid workers and equipment to the city,
said Philippine National Red Cross Chairman Richard Gordon.
"We really are having access problems," he said.
The city's airport was
shut, and it would be three days before a land route was open, so
organizers were considering chartering a boat for the 1½-to-2-day trip,
he said.
"It really is an awful, awful situation."
Tacloban is the largest
city in the Eastern Visayas Islands. It was an important logistical base
during World War II and served as a temporary capital of the
Philippines.
Catastrophic destruction
The destruction across
the islands was catastrophic and widespread. For a time, storm clouds
covered the entire Philippines, stretching 1,120 miles -- the distance
between Florida and Canada -- and tropical storm-force winds covered an
area the size of Germany.
The typhoon first struck
before dawn on Friday on the country's eastern island of Samar,
flooding streets and knocking out power and communications in most of
Eastern Visayas region.
Powered by 195-mph winds
and gusts up to 235 mph, it then struck near Tacloban and Dulag on the
island of Leyte, flooding the coastal communities.
"It is like a tsunami has hit here," CNN's Paula Hancocks said from Tacloban.
Many islands hit
Haiyan continued its
march, barreling into five other Philippine islands before its wind
strength dropped Saturday to 130 mph and it lost its super typhoon
designation.
On Friday, the Red Cross
had more than 700,000 people in evacuation centers, but some of those
proved no match for the storm, the Red Cross' Gordon said. "People died
there as well."
Meteorologists predicted
that Haiyan would weaken to a minimal typhoon or a tropical storm
before making landfall Monday morning in northern Vietnam between Hanoi
and Vinh. Up to 12 inches of rain were forecast for portions of northern
Vietnam near the border with China by Monday night.
By late Saturday,
Philippine military helicopters were taking surveys of the disaster; it
took relief workers from Manila up to 18 hours to reach the worst-hit
isles.
Super Typhoon Haiyan
packed a wallop on Philippine structures that was 3.5 times more
forceful than the United States' Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which
directly or indirectly killed 1,833 people. At $108 billion, it was the
costliest hurricane in U.S. history.
Haiyan may be the
strongest tropical cyclone in recorded history, though meteorologists
said it will take further analysis to establish whether it is a record.
Cut-off communities
Most of Cebu province
couldn't be contacted by landlines, cell phones or radio, Dennis Chiong,
operations officer for the province's disaster risk and emergency
management, said Saturday.
One inaccessible town,
Daanbantayan, has more than 3,000 residents who "badly need food, water
and shelter because most of the houses there are damaged due to the
storm," Chiong said.
In the town of Santa Fe
in Cebu province, officials could not determine the number of fatalities
because roads were washed out and phone services down.
Defenseless against the storm's might
One major concern was
the typhoon's impact on Bohol Island, where 350,000 people had been
living in tents and temporary shelters since last month's earthquake,
said Joe Curry of Catholic Relief Services.
But he said he was concerned about other areas, too.
"There are a lot of
rural areas, a lot of small islands that are affected," Curry said. "We
don't know how they can protect themselves from a typhoon of this
strength."
Clarson Fruelda of Cebu City said residents were cleaning up dirt, leaves, coconuts and tree branches from their homes.
"The winds were the
strongest that I felt in more than 20 years," Fruelda said. "These past
few weeks were really tough for my wife and I and probably for Cebuanos
as well since it was just a few weeks ago when we were hit by a
7.2-magnitude earthquake."
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