Scale of Destruction Slows Relief Efforts in Philippines - NYTimes.comScale of Destruction Slows Relief Efforts in Philippines - NYTimes.com




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Devastation in the Philippines







Scale of Destruction Slows Relief Efforts in Philippines 






 

By 

KEITH BRADSHER

Published: November 11, 2013    













CEBU, Philippines — The scale of the devastation and the desperation wrought by one of the most powerful storms ever to buffet the Philippines came into much clearer view on Monday, three days after it hopscotched across the country’s midsection whipping up monstrous walls of seawater.        



  
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Jes Aznar for The New York Times
Survivors in Tacloban salvaged necessities from destroyed homes.                            




Survivors spoke of people being swept away in tsunami-like torrents, their corpses strewn among the wreckage of the storm, Typhoon Haiyan.        
Residents of the hard-hit city of Tacloban described a terrifying experience Friday evening as Haiyan hit, with seawater suddenly filling the streets, rising within minutes until it had submerged the ground floors of homes and was waist-deep on the second floors of those that had second floors. Screaming people bobbed in the water — many grabbing for floating debris, but not all succeeding.        
“Swirling water from the ocean filled the streets,” said Virginia Basinang, 54, a retired teacher in Tacloban. “Some of them were able to hold on, some were lucky and lived, but most did not.” When the water receded, 14 bodies lay on the broken wall of the house across the street from her home, Ms. Basinang said. They were still there, she said.        
Drizzle began turning into rain just before midnight on Monday in Tacloban, and through the early morning hours it became torrential at times, adding further misery for Filipinos still trying to occupy homes that lost part or all of their roofs during the typhoon. Dirt roads began turning to mud by dawn on Tuesday, raising another obstacle for relief workers.        
By some estimates, at least 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban alone. But with phone service out across large stretches of this central Philippines archipelago, it was not yet known if the storm had been as deadly in more remote areas. With winds that reached 190 miles an hour, according to some accounts, the typhoon hit with a force that approached that of a tornado.        
The main effect appeared to be a storm surge driven by the winds, believed to be among the strongest ever recorded in the Philippines, lifting walls of water onto the land as they struck.        
Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan Jr., a spokesman for the armed forces, said, “I don’t have words to describe what our ground commanders are seeing in the field.”        
United Nations officials said Monday that Valerie Amos, the organization’s top relief official, was en route to the Philippines to lead the international aid effort, which had already begun mobilizing on the ground. Ms. Amos, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, released $25 million from an emergency response fund to help pay for immediate priorities and planned to launch a “flash appeal” for more money when she arrived on Tuesday.        
“We are focused first and foremost on the requirements for food, shelter, medical support, to prevent the outbreak of public health disasters,” John Ging, the operations coordinator for United Nations relief, told reporters in New York.        
Asked if he thought the death toll could rise, Mr. Ging said, “We hope it doesn’t get any higher but we have to be prepared for the worst.”        
The effort led by the United Nations came as the United States significantly raised its assistance to the Philippines. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who had ordered 90 Marines and half a dozen aircraft to assist in rescue and assessment work over the weekend, on Monday ordered the USS aircraft carrier George Washington and other Navy ships in the Pacific “to make the best speed for the Republic of the Philippines.”        
The George Washington, which carries 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, was ordered to depart from a port visit in Hong Kong, and the crew was recalled from shore leave immediately.        
Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, said that a Red Cross aid convoy to Tacloban had to turn back on Sunday after it stopped at a collapsed bridge and was nearly hijacked by a crowd of hungry people. “There is very little food going in, and what food there was, was captured” by the crowd, Mr. Gordon said Monday morning in a telephone interview.        



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Reporting was contributed by Gerry Mullany from Hong Kong; Floyd Whaley from Estancia, Philippines; Austin Ramzy from Cebu, Philippines; Mark Mazzetti from Washington; and Rick Gladstone and Alan Feuer from New York. 
 









 

















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