Super typhoon survivors desperate for aid
Survivors of a super typhoon that has killed more than 10,000 people in the Philippines are growing increasingly desperate for aid, as authorities struggle to cope with potentially the country’s worst recorded natural disaster.
Rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunami-like waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.
Hundreds of police and soldiers have been deployed to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the US announced it’s sending military help.
“Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families,” high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, told AFP on Sunday, warning of the increasing desperation of survivors.
“People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk …. I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger.”
President Benigno Aquino said while visiting Tacloban that looting has become a major concern, after only 20 officers out of the city’s 390-strong police force turned up for work.
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“So we will send about 300 police and soldiers to take their place and bring back peace and order,” he said.
Haiyan, which moved out of the Philippines and into the South China Sea on Saturday, hit Vietnam early on Monday.
Although the storm had weakened at sea, more than 600,000 people have been evacuated in Vietnam ahead of its expected landfall.
Forecasters predict the typhoon will strike Vietnam as the equivalent of a category-one hurricane – the weakest on the one-to-five wind-speed scale – or even a tropical storm.
The Vietnamese government website says five people have died while preparing for the storm.
Farther north, six members of a cargo boat were also missing off the Chinese province of Hainan, state media in China reported.
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In the Philippines, up to four million children could be affected by the disaster, the United Nations Children’s Fund has warned.
“We are rushing to get critical supplies to children who are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” said UNICEF Philippines representative Tomoo Hozumi.
“Reaching the worst-affected areas is very difficult,” he said. “But we are working around the clock.”
Authorities are struggling with the sheer magnitude of the disaster, let alone react to it, with the regional police chief for Leyte saying initial government estimates showed 10,000 people were believed to have died in that province alone.
Chief Superintendent Elmer Soria told reporters in Tacloban that the typhoon destroyed up to 80 per cent of the structures in its path.
On the neighbouring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people have been killed in the small town of Basey.
He added another 2,000 are missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean as a category-five storm with maximum sustained winds of 315km/h.
Dozens more people are confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600km stretch of islands through the central Philippines.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon has promised that humanitarian agencies will “respond rapidly to help people in need”, while the European Commission says it will give 3 million euros ($A4.29 million).
The Abbott government has pledged nearly $400,000 worth of emergency aid to devastated communities, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott says more will be available if and when it is requested.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed the death of a 50-year-old NSW man in the typhoon, believed to be former Australian priest Kevin Lee.
