The U.S. military has dispatched aid and troops to some of the areas of the Philippines that were hardest-hit by a deadly typhoon Friday, providing the first outside help of what is expected to be a major aid mission in the coming days and weeks.
Two U.S. C-130 transport planes containing water, generators, and a contingent of Marines flew from Manila's Vilamor air base to the city of Tacloban, where officials fear that Typhoon Haiyan may have killed as many as 10,000 people.
A U.S. Marine brigadier general who took a helicopter flight over Tacloban says "every single building" was destroyed or severely damaged. Paul Kennedy spoke as supplies were unloaded from the two Marine C-130 planes.
The Philippine military says it has confirmed 942 people have died in the aftermath of the storm, with 275 others confirmed missing. The death toll is expected to rise considerably as officials and aid workers access the worst-hit areas and discover more bodies.
Disrupted transportation and communications links have made it difficult to count the dead and distribute relief goods. Destruction from the typhoon, which slammed into the central Philippines on Friday, was extensive, with debris blocking roads and trapping decomposing bodies.
Meanwhile, the Philippine National Red Cross said Monday its search and rescue efforts are being hampered by looters, including some who attacked trucks of food and other relief supplies the agency was shipping from a port city.
Rescuers also faced blocked roads and damaged airports on Monday as they raced to deliver desperately needed tents, food and medicines to the eastern Philippines.
Police guarded stores to prevent people from hauling off food, water and such non-essentials as TVs and treadmills, but there was often no one to carry away the dead -- not even those seen along the main road from the airport to Tacloban, the worst-hit city along the country's remote eastern seaboard.
A 19-year-old student in Tacloban says he tried to ride out the storm in his home with his ailing father, but the storm surge carried the building away. Marvin Daga says they clung to each other while the house floated, but it eventually crumbled and they fell into the churning waters. He says his father slipped out of his grasp and sank -- and that he's not expecting to find him alive.
Larry Womack and his wife Bobbie, American missionaries from Tennessee, have lived in Tacloban for a long time. Womack says he chose to stay at their beachside home, only to find the storm surge engulfing it. He survived by climbing onto a beam in the roof that stayed attached to a wall. Womack says, "There were actual waves going over my head."
With other rampant looting being reported, President Benigno Aquino III said Sunday that he was considering declaring a state of emergency or martial law in Tacloban, as officials have proposed. The national disaster agency can recommend such a measure if the local government is unable to carry out its functions, Aquino said.
A state of emergency usually includes curfews, price and food supply controls, military or police checkpoints and increased security patrols.
Aquino flew around Leyte Island by helicopter on Sunday and landed in Tacloban to get a firsthand look at the disaster. He said the government's priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and deliver relief and medical assistance to victims.
Authorities said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by the typhoon, which is called Yolanda in the Philippines but is known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia. It's one of the most powerful recorded typhoons to ever hit land and likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation. At least 23,000 houses had been damaged or destroyed. Ships were tossed inland, cars and trucks swept out to sea and bridges and ports washed away.
"In some cases the devastation has been total," said Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras.
Regional police chief Elmer Soria said he was briefed by Leyte provincial Gov. Dominic Petilla late Saturday and was told that there may be 10,000 deaths in the province, mostly by drowning and from collapsed buildings. The governor's figure was based on reports from village officials in areas where the storm hit.
A mass burial was planned Sunday in Palo town near Tacloban, which is located about 360 miles southeast of the capital of the Philippines, Manila. It was one of six islands slammed by the storm, which was one of the strongest on record to have hit the Philippines.
"Please tell my family I'm alive," Erika Mae Karakot, a survivor on Leyte island, told an Associated Press reporter as she lined up for aid. "We need water and medicine because a lot of the people we are with are wounded. Some are suffering from diarrhea and dehydration due to shortage of food and water."
Even though authorities had evacuated some 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon, the death toll was predicted to be high because many evacuation centers -- brick-and-mortar schools, churches and government buildings -- could not withstand the winds and water surges. Officials said people who had huddled in these buildings drowned or were swept away.
Survivors wandered through the remains of their flattened wooden homes, hoping to salvage belongings or find loved ones.
Residents have stripped malls, shops and homes of food, water and consumer goods. Officials said some of the looting smacked of desperation but in other cases items taken included TVs, refrigerators, Christmas trees and a treadmill. An Associated Press reporter in the town said he saw around 400 special forces and soldiers patrolling downtown to guard against further chaos.
"We're afraid that it's going to get dangerous in town because relief goods are trickling in very slow," said American Bobbie Womack. "I know it's a massive, massive undertaking to try to feed a town of over 150,000 people. They need to bring in shiploads of food."
Philippine 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.
Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines on Friday and quickly barreled across its central islands, packing winds of 147 mph that gusted to 170 mph, and a storm surge of 20 feet.
It inflicted serious damage to at least six islands in the middle of the eastern seaboard, with Leyte, Samar and the northern part of Cebu appearing to bear the brunt of the storm.
Video from Eastern Samar province's Guiuan township -- the first area where the typhoon made landfall -- showed a trail of devastation similar to Tacloban. 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.
"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 United Nations said it was sending supplies but access to the worst hit areas was a challenge.
"Reaching the worst affected areas is very difficult, with limited access due to the damage caused by the typhoon to infrastructure and communications," said UNICEF Philippines Representative Tomoo Hozumi.
The Philippines, an archipelago nation of more than 7,000 islands, 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 more people than the previous deadliest Philippine storm, Thelma, in which about 5,100 people died in the central Philippines in 1991.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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