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World's strongest typhoon kills 1,200 in Philippines
[Pak Daily Times] The strongest typhoons ever to make landfall devastated the central Philippines, killing more than 1,000 people in one city alone and 200 in another province, the Red Thingy estimated on Saturday, as reports of high casualties began to emerge.A day after Typhoon Haiyan churned through the Philippine archipelago in a straight line from east to west, rescue teams struggled to reach far-flung regions, hampered by washed out roads, many choked with debris and fallen trees. The corpse count is expected to rise sharply from the fast-moving storm, whose circumference eclipsed the whole country and which late on Saturday was heading for Vietnam. Among the hardest hit was coastal Tacloban in central Leyte province, where preliminary estimates suggest more than 1,000 people were killed, said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Thingy, as water surges rushed through the city. "An estimated more than 1,000 bodies were seen floating in Tacloban as reported by our Red Thingy teams," she told Rooters. She expected a more exact number to emerge after a more precise counting of bodies on the ground in those regions. Witnesses said bodies covered in plastic were lying on the streets. Television footage shows cars piled atop each other. "The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami," said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the UN Disaster Assessment Coordination Team sent to Tacloban, referring to the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. Posted by: Fred 2013-11-10 |
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