Over 10,000 people have died in the Philippines from one of the largest storms in history. Super Typhoon Haiyan was 3 1/2 times stronger than Hurricane Katrina! I have two friends in the Philippines. I haven't heard from either one since the storm. I hope they are okay and aren't responding only because the power is down.
Reuters - Sunday, November 10, 2013
Survivors 'walk like zombies' after Philippine typhoon kills estimated 10,000(Reuters) - One of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away coastal villages and devastating one of the main cities in the region.
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, before weakening and heading west for Vietnam.
As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food or searched for lost loved ones.
"People are walking like zombies looking for food," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. "It's like a movie."
Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.
The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,200 killed by a storm whose sustained winds reached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph.
More > > >
CNN - Sunday, November 10, 2013
Typhoon Haiyan: In hard-hit Tacloban, children ripped from armsBy Andrew Stevens and Paula Hancocks, CNN
Tacloban, Philippines (CNN)
Children torn from armsPeople who had walked, sometimes for hours, to the relief station at the Tacloban airport told stories of the human cost.
Marvin Isanan said three of his daughters -- ages 8, 13 and 15 -- were swept from his arms by the storm surge. He and his wife, Loretta Isanan, had found the bodies of the two younger children.
"Only the eldest one is missing," Marvin Isanan said through tears. "I hope she's alive."
A woman at the airport said she escaped the water by climbing onto her roof. From there, she watched bodies float by.
Authorities have only estimates of the deaths. Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, estimated that 1,000 people died in Tacloban and an additional 200 on the nearby island of Samar.
The airport now houses a makeshift morgue. Further inland, a CNN crew found a small chapel being used to house nine covered bodies -- five of them children.
The scene from the airCNN's Ivan Watson traveled by plane from Manila to Tacloban with civil aviation officials Sunday.
"On approach, you could see entire forests of palm trees that have been flattened in the hills around Tacloban," he said.
Watson saw flooded villages and devastated coastlines, as well as a warehouse district where every roof seemed to be missing.
William Hotchkiss, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and a former air force commander, said, "I'm 70 years old, and I've never seen anything like this before."
More > > >
Login
FAQ
Search
roseanne
