International
Just days after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the Philippines and as rescuers struggle to provide aid to hard-hit areas, another weather system is making its way Tuesday toward the Southeast Asian island nation.
It was unclear if Tropical Storm Zoraida would affect the same areas as Haiyan, as projections show it moving slightly to the south of the super typhoon's path. Zoraida is expected to bring heavy rains and wind to the Philippines until Thursday morning, according to the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).
The Philippines faces a daunting relief effort after the devastating storm killed thousands, with bloated bodies lying uncollected and uncounted in the streets and increasingly desperate survivors pleading for food, water and medicine.
In an interview with CNN, Philippine President Benigno Aquino downplayed the death toll, suggesting the number is closer to 2,000 or 2,500, but added that 29 municipalities still had to be reached to assess the total damage. The death toll was initially estimated at 10,000 people.
As part of the international effort to assist the Philippines, the United States is providing $20 million in immediate aid and is sending the USS George Washington aircraft carrier to the country. The Pentagon said that the USS George Washington and four other ships should be in position within 48 to 72 hours. It will be joined by a British Navy warship and military aircraft.
Neighboring nations have also ramped up assistance, such as Japan, which has pledged $10 million, Austrialia, which promised $9.4 million and Taiwan, which said it would send $200,000. China has only committed to donating $200,000, saying it is assessing what the full needs are.
MORE: Ways to donate and additional coverage of Typhoon Haiyan
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, meanwhile, said he had declared a "state of national calamity," allowing the central government to release emergency funds quicker and impose price controls on staple goods. He said the two worst-hit provinces, Leyte, where Tacloban is located, and Samar, had witnessed "massive destruction and loss of life" but that elsewhere casualties were low.
Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Cuisia, speaking with Al Jazeera's Ray Suarez Monday evening, said the immediate needs of the people affected included food, drinking water and temporary shelter. Cuisia also detailed the scope of the storm, citing experts in calling it "the strongest typhoon ever in the history of the Philippines."
Humanitarian chief of the United Nations Valerie Amos said they have not been able to reach remote areas. "Even in Tacloban, because of the debris and the difficulties with logistics and so on, we have not been able to get in the level of supply that we would want to." The U.N. said it had released $25 million in emergency funds and has launched an appeal for more.
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are appealing for $95 million to assist the people who are affected by the typhoon. Various organizations from all over the world such as World Vision and HSBC Group are donating aid up of several million dollars to victims in the Phlippines.
Two government officials said Sunday that Friday's typhoon may have killed 10,000 or more people, but with the slow pace of recovery, the official death toll remained well below that. NDRRMC confirmed 1,744 deaths and over 2,400 hurt, but shattered communications, transportation links and local governments could mean the final toll is days away. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said "we pray" that the death count is less than 10,000.
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.
Meanwhile, police are guarding 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.
At a small naval base in Tacloban, eight swollen corpses — including that of a baby — were submerged in sea water brought in by the storm, according to The Associated Press. Officers there had yet to move them, saying they had no body bags or electricity to preserve them. The city resembled a garbage dump from the air, punctuated only by a few concrete buildings that remained standing.
"I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way — every single building, every single house," U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over the city. He spoke on the tarmac at the airport, where two Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked, engines running, unloading supplies.
Philippine soldiers were distributing food and water in Tacloban, and assessment teams from the United Nations and international agencies were seen for the first time. The U.S. military dispatched food, water, generators and a contingent of Marines to the city, the first outside help in what will swell into a major international relief mission.
"Please tell my family I'm alive," Erika Mae Karakot, a survivor on Tacloban's Leyte island, told the AP 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."
Authorities said they evacuated some 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon, but some of the evacuation centers proved to be no protection against the wind and rising water. The Philippine National Red Cross, responsible for warning the region and giving advice, said people were not prepared for a storm surge.
"Imagine America, which was prepared and very rich, still had a lot of challenges at the time of Hurricane Katrina, but what we had was three times more than what they received," Gwendolyn Pang, the group's executive director, told the AP.
Emily Ortega, 21 and about to give birth, was among those who had thought she was safe. But the evacuation center she fled to was devastated by the 20-foot storm surge, and she had to swim and cling to a post to survive. She reached safety at the airport, where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
The winds, rains and coastal storm surges transformed neighborhoods into twisted piles of debris, blocking roads and trapping decomposing bodies underneath. 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.
Tacloban residents 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 AP reporter in the town said he saw around 400 special forces and soldiers patrolling downtown to guard against further chaos.
Brig. Gen. Kennedy said Philippine forces were handling security well, and that his forces were "looking at how to open up roads and land planes and helicopters," he said. "We got shelter coming in. (The U.S. Agency for International Development) is bringing in water and supplies," Kennedy added.
Those caught in the storm were worried that aid would not arrive soon enough.
"We're afraid that it's going to get dangerous in town because relief goods are trickling in very slow," said Bobbie Womack, an American missionary and longtime Tacloban resident from Athens, Tennessee. "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."
Womack's husband, Larry, said 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.
"The roof was lifting up and the wind was coming through and there were actual waves going over my head," he said. "The sound was loud. It was just incredible."
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 impoverished and densely populated nation of 96 million people 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, which packed winds of 147 mph that gusted to 170 mph, was an especially large catastrophe. 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.
Previously, 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 5,791 people.
Al Jazeera and wire services
Error
Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Please try again later or using a different browser.