Substantial food and medical aid has
finally begun to reach desperate survivors of a super-typhoon that killed
thousands in the Philippines, but humanitarian groups are warning of huge
challenges in accessing devastated communities in remote areas.
The unprecedented ferocity of Haiyan
on November 8 and the scale of destruction it caused had completely overwhelmed
the initial relief effort, leaving millions in the worst-hit central islands of
Leyte and Samar hurt, homeless and hungry, with no power or water.
Eight days later, aid workers are
funnelling emergency supplies to those left destitute in the ruins of Leyte's
Tacloban city, while helicopters flying off the aircraft carrier USS George
Washington have brought some relief to outlying areas.
In Giporlos, a small coastal town of
around 12,000 people in eastern Samar, where the typhoon first struck, a US
Seahawk helicopter flew in the first relief supplies on Saturday, landing in
the playground of a ruined school.
"We're very happy even if it
isn't really sufficient for us," said resident Maria Elvie
Depelco. "We accept a little, and we survive. Because there's no more
food, no houses here," she said, pointing to the flattened remains of the
town where 12 people died.
The place really needs to be
saturated with relief. People literally have nothing. Money is useless here.
Patrick Fuller, Red Cross
spokesperson
In the nearby town of Guiuan, planes
laden with supplies were landing and taking off every few minutes from an old
military airstrip that had been reopened.
UN agencies said more than 170,000
family food packages had been distributed across the disaster zones, while the
Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) international
aid agencies said that they would have mobile surgical units up and running in
Tacloban by the end of the weekend.
"The place really needs to be
saturated with relief," Red Cross Asia-Pacific spokesman Patrick Fuller
said in Tacloban. "People literally have nothing. Money is useless
here."
Since the arrival of the USS George
Washington late Thursday, the US military said it had delivered 118 tonnes of
food, water and shelter items to Tacloban and elsewhere, and airlifted nearly
2,900 people to safety.
Although aid was arriving, relief
officials described sanitary conditions in the covered sports stadium in
Tacloban that served as the main evacuation centre as appalling.
Death toll
The National Disaster Risk Reduction
and Management Council on Saturday put the official death toll at 3,633, many
of them killed by five metre storm surges that hit Tacloban.
Another 1,179 people were listed as missing
and nearly 12,500 injured, and the death toll was widely expected to continue
climbing as more complete assessments were made.
The UN reported that 4,460 had been
confirmed dead, and said Saturday that 2.5 million people still
"urgently" required food assistance.
An estimated 13 million people were
affected by the storm, which swept off the Pacific Ocean with some of the
strongest winds ever recorded, including nearly 1.9 million displaced survivors
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