International
Survivors of Typhoon Haiyan began rebuilding homes destroyed by one of the world's most powerful storms, and emergency supplies flowed into ravaged Philippine islands Saturday, as the United Nations more than doubled its estimate of people made homeless to nearly two million.
But the aid effort was still so patchy that bodies lay uncollected as rescuers tried to evacuate stricken communities, more than a week after the typhoon killed thousands with tree-snapping winds and tsunami-like waves.
After long delays, hundreds of international aid workers set up makeshift hospitals and trucked in supplies, while helicopters from a U.S. aircraft carrier ferried medicine and water to remote, battered areas where some families have gone without food and clean water for days.
"We are very, very worried about millions of children," U.N. Children's Fund spokesman Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.
A U.N. official said in a guarded compliment that many countries had come forward to help.
"The response from the international community has not been overwhelming compared to the magnitude of the disaster, but it has been very generous so far," Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told the Geneva news briefing.
Captain Victoriano Sambale, a military doctor who for the past week has treated patients in a room strewn with dirt and debris in Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the storm, said there had been a change in the pace of the response.
"I can see the international support coming here," he said.
But he is still overwhelmed. "Day one we treated 600-plus patients. Day two we had 700-plus patients. Day three we lost our count."
President Benigno Aquino, caught off guard by the scale of the disaster, is scheduled to visit typhoon-affected areas Saturday. He has been criticized for the slow pace of aid distribution and unclear estimates of casualties, especially in Tacloban, capital of hardest-hit Leyte province.
The government defended its efforts to deliver aid to victims, many of whom have received little or no assistance since the storm struck one week ago.
The death toll was raised Friday by disaster authorities to 3,621, up from the previous figure of 2,360. It is expected to rise further when some of the missing are declared dead and remote regions are reached. A further 1,140 people are classified as missing.
"In a situation like this, nothing is fast enough,'' Mar Roxas, the Philippine interior secretary, said on Friday in Tacloban. "The need is massive, the need is immediate, and you can't reach everyone.''
Al Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa, reporting from Ormoc city, west of Tacloban, said the extent of the destruction was enormous.
Pedrosa reported that the health department's contingency plan had become obsolete, because reserve aid for such disasters, which had been held in Tacloban, had been destroyed in the typhoon's wake.
She said communication between the central Philippines and areas such as Ormoc city remained a problem as well.
"Some of the outlying areas have not heard from the central government as yet," Pedrosa said.
She said because Philippine government systems were not as developed as those in other countries, officials were grappling with the magnitude of the disaster.
The pace of the aid effort has picked up over the last 24 hours, according to reporters who have been in the region for several days.
"But local governments are getting on with it and trying to organize themselves," said Pedrosa.
Foreign governments are dispatching food, water, medical supplies and trained staff to the region.
Trucks and generators have also begun to arrive.
A U.S. aircraft carrier was moored off the Philippine coast as it was preparing for a major relief mission.
The fleet of helicopters on board is expected to drop food and water to the worst-affected areas.
Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Cebu airport, said food had begun to arrive and distribution had also begun.
"The plane arrives very quickly, it is unloaded quickly, but some of it sits on the tarmac and waits to get distributed," he said.
Hay said this had been the cause of much frustration — and that once the aid had been distributed to local governments, there was further frustration.
Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas, reporting from Tacloban city, said people were accusing local government officials of giving friends and family preference in distributing aid.
Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said he could not comment on this, but that relief operations were now underway.
"The aid is being distributed in all the towns in Leyte island, not just Tacloban," he said.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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