Philippines storm kills estimated 10,000, destruction hampers rescue efforts
Rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged towns and villages in the central Philippines on Monday as they tried to deliver aid to survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed an estimated 10,000 people and displaced more than 600,000. ● The United Nations said some survivors had no food, water or medicine. Relief operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage, it said. President Benigno Aquino, facing one of the biggest challenges of his three-year rule, deployed soldiers to the devastated city of Tacloban to quell looting and said he might impose martial law or a state of emergency to ensure security. Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria. After weakening, the storm headed west towards Vietnam. Huge waves from one of the strongest storms ever recorded swept away coastal villages. Some officials likened the destruction to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. "From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometer inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami," said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who was in Tacloban, Leyte's capital, before the typhoon struck. "I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."
AP/Big Story: Desperate survivors seek to flee typhoon zone
Russia Today: 4.8 quake hits typhoon-ravaged Philippines
xinhuanet.com: Tropical storm follows super-typhoon Haiyan in Philippines
The Guardian: Typhoon Haiyan: 800,000 Filipinos displaced