Workers in the typhoon-shattered city of Tacloban have been burying scores of unidentified bodies in a hillside mass graves as desperately needed aid begins to reach some of the 500,000 people displaced by the disaster.
Dozens more bodies were lined up in bags outside the city hall waiting to be taken to burial sites. Six days after Typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines, many of the dead were still lying along roads as survivors searched for bodies under the rubble.
Philippine soldiers on trucks distributed rice and water as chainsaw-wielding teams cut debris from blocked roads. Thousands more swarmed towards the city’s damaged airport, desperate to leave or to get treatment at a makeshift medical centre.
The US aircraft carrier George Washington arrived in the Philippine Sea near the Gulf of Leyte yesterday and will take up position off the coast of Samar Island to assess the damage and provide medical and water supplies.
The carrier and its strike group brought 21 helicopters that can reach the most inaccessible areas.
Authorities say 2,357 people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, but that figure is expected to rise, perhaps significantly, when information is collected from other areas.
In the city’s first mass burial, scores of bodies in black bags were lowered into graves without any prayers being said.
Officials said efforts had been made to identify the bodies. It was not immediately clear whether this included DNA testing.
In addition to the USS George Washington, about a half dozen other US ships – including a destroyer and two huge supply vessels – are already in the area, along with two surveillance aircraft that are being used to assess the damage so planners can decide where aid is most needed, the 7th Fleet said.
Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief who toured Tacloban on Wednesday, said some 11.5million people had been affected by the typhoon.
“The situation is dismal,” she said. “Tens of thousands of people are living in the open, exposed to rain and wind.”
Aid has been slow to reach the 545,000 people displaced by the storm, which tore across several islands in the eastern Philippines last Friday. Most of the casualties occurred in Leyte province, its capital, Tacloban, and Samar island.
Baroness Amos said the immediate priority for humanitarian agencies over the next few days was to transport and distribute high-energy biscuits and other food, tarpaulins, tents, clean drinking water and basic sanitation services.
“I think we are all extremely distressed that this is day six and we have not managed to reach everyone,” she said.
The first night-time flights – by C-130 transport planes – arrived since the typhoon struck, suggesting air control systems are now in place for round-the-clock operations, a prerequisite for the massive relief operation needed.
Tacloban city administrator Tecson Lim said 70% of the city’s 220,000 people were in need of emergency assistance and only 70 of the city’s 2,700 employees had been showing up for work.
He also stuck to an earlier estimate that 10,000 people had died in Tacloban, while President Benigno Aquino III has said the final death toll would top 2,500.
There is no shortage of aid material but much of it is stuck in Manila and the nearby airport of Cebu because of the extensive damage that Tacloban airport suffered.
Some of it, including food, water and medical supplies from the US, Malaysia and Singapore, has reached Tacloban and is sitting on pallets along the tarmac.
Baroness Amos said the few trucks on the ground in Tacloban were unable to move aid material from the airport to the city because of a lack of fuel.
The weather also remains a challenge, with frequent downpours.
On Wednesday, the UN’s World Food Program distributed rice and other items to nearly 50,000 people in the Tacloban area. Nearly 10 tonnes of high-energy biscuits were also delivered to the city.
Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said army troops had fired shots to drive away a group of armed men who approached a power transmission substation in Leyte province.