Typhoon Haiyan: 8 dead in looting at rice
warehouse
Published on Nov 13, 2013
11:26 AM
A man paints a message on a baskeball court that reads "Help SOS We Need Food" at Anibong in Tacloban, eastern island
of Leyte, on Nov 11, 2013. An official says eight people were crushed to death when thousands of typhoon survivors
stormed a government rice warehouse in the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
TACLOBAN (AP) - An official says eight people were crushed to death when thousands of typhoon
survivors stormed a government rice warehouse in the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines.
National Food Authority spokesman Rex Estoperez said on Wednesday that police and soldiers were
helpless when the looting took place in Leyte's Alangalang municipality on Tuesday.
He said the eight were crushed when a wall collapsed. The looters carted away more than 100,000 sacks of
rice. He added that there are other warehouses in the region but refused to say where they are for security
reasons.
Typhoon Haiyan: Aid operations pick up
pace in Philippines
Published on Nov 13, 2013
11:39 AM
Indonesian air force personnel gather before their departure to bring relief supplies donated by Indonesian government for
victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, at Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Nov 13, 2013.
Relief operations in the typhoon-devastated region of the Philippines picked up pace on Wednesday, but still only minimal
amounts of water, food and medical supplies were making it increasingly desperate for survivors in the hardest-hit areas. -PHOTO: AP
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) - Relief operations in this typhoon-devastated region of the Philippines
picked up pace on Wednesday, but still only minimal amounts of water, food and medical supplies were
making it increasingly desperate for survivors in the hardest-hit areas.
Aviation authorities said two more airports in the region had reopened, allowing for more aid flights.
US Brig Gen. Paul Kennedy said that later on Wednesday, his troops would install equipment at Tacloban
airport to allow planes to land at night. Tacloban city was almost completely destroyed in Friday's typhoon
and has become the main relief hub.
A Norwegian ship carrying supplies left from Manila, while an Australian air force transport plane took off
from Canberra carrying a medical team. British and American navy vessels are also en route to the region.
The damaged airport on Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000, houses makeshift clinics and thousands of
people looking for a flight out. A doctor here said supplies of antibiotics and anesthetics arrived on
Tuesday for the first time.
"Until then, patients had to endure the pain," said Dr Victoriano Sambale.
The winds levelled tens of thousands of homes in region, which is used to typhoons. In some places,
tsunami-like storm surges swept up to one-kilometer inland, causing more destruction and loss of life. At
least 580,000 people have been displaced. Most of the death and destruction appears concentrated on the
islands of Samar and Leyte.
The damaged infrastructure and bad communications links made a conclusive death toll difficult to
estimate.
The official toll from a national disaster agency rose to 1, 883 on Tuesday. President Benigno Aquino told
CNN in a televised interview that the toll could be closer to 2,000 or 2,500, lower than an earlier estimate
from two officials on the ground who said they feared as many as 10,000 might be dead.
"There is a huge amount that we need to do. We have not been able to get into the remote communities,"
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said in Manila, launching an appeal for US$301 million (S$376
million) to help the more than 11 million people estimated to be affected by the storm.
"Even in Tacloban, because of the debris and the difficulties with logistics and so on, we have not been
able to get in the level of supply that we would want to. We are going to do as much as we can to bring in
more," she said. Her office said she planned to visit the city.
Relief officials said comparing the pace of this operation to those in past disasters was difficult.
In Indonesia's Aceh, the worst-hit region by the 2004 tsunami, relief hubs were easier to set up than in
Tacloban. The main airport there was functioning 24 hours a day within a couple of days of the disaster.
While devastation in much of the city of Banda Aceh was total, large inland parts of the city were
undamaged, providing a base for aid operations and temporary accommodation for the homeless.
Typhoon Haiyan: Thousands of Filipinos
jostle for seats on scarce flights
Published on Nov 13, 2013
12:31 PM
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AFP) - Thousands of people on Wednesday jostled and begged for seats on
scarce flights out of a Philippine city demolished by a super typhoon, as anger at the slow pace of aid
reaching the disaster zone turned deadly.
News emerged that eight people were crushed to death on Tuesday when a huge crowd of survivors from
Haiyan - one of the strongest storms ever - rushed to a government rice warehouse in Alangalang town, 17
kilometres from the devastated city of Tacloban.
"One wall of our warehouses collapsed and eight people were crushed and killed instantly" in Tuesday's
incident, said Mr Rex Estoperez, spokesman for the National Food Authority.
Five days after Haiyan ripped apart entire coastal communities, the situation in Tacloban was becoming
ever more dire with essential supplies low and increasingly desperate survivors jostling at the airport.
"Everyone is panicking," Captain Emily Chang, a navy doctor, told AFP.
"They say there is no food, no water. They want to get of here," she added, saying doctors at the airport
had run out of medicine, including antibiotics.
"We are examining everyone but there's little we can do until more medical supplies arrive."
The United Nations estimates that 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban, the provincial capital of
Leyte province where five-metre waves flattened nearly everything in their path as they swept hundreds of
metres across the low-lying land.
However, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said late Tuesday that he believed the toll was "too much",
adding that 2,500 "is the figure we're working on".
At Tacloban airport, AFP journalists witnessed exhausted and famished survivors pushing and shoving
each other to get on one of the few flights out of the city, where festering bodies still littered many streets.
Health Secretary Enrique Ona admitted authorities were struggling to deal with the sheer numbers of the
dead.
He told radio station DZMM they had "delayed" the retrieval of bodies "because we ran out of body bags".
"We hope to speed it up when we get more body bags," he said.
Patience is running out among the survivors
"We have been here for three days and we still cannot get to fly out," said a frail Angeline Conchas, who
was waiting for space on a plane with her seven-year-old daughter Rogiel Ann.
Her family were trapped on the second floor of their building as flood waters rose around them.
They made their way to safety by clinging on to an electricity cable to move to a higher structure where
they stayed until the waters subsided.
"It is a good thing the electricity had already been cut off or we would have died," Ms Conchas said.
"We made it out, but now we may die from hunger."
The UN estimates more than 11.3 million people have been affected with 673,000 made homeless, since
Haiyan smashed into the nation's central islands on Friday.
Overwhelmed and under-resourced rescue workers have been unable to provide food, water, medicines,
shelter and other relief supplies to many survivors, and desperation has been building across the disaster
zones.
On Tuesday, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos praised the international community's reaction but said
much more needed to be done in a disaster of such magnitude.
The international relief effort is building momentum with many countries pledging help. The United States
and Britain are sending warships carrying thousands of sailors to the Philippines.
The aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which has 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft aboard, is
heading from Hong Kong with five other US warships, while three amphibious vessels are also being
deployed.
The carrier group is expected to reach the Philippines later this week, the Pentagon said, bringing much
needed supplies. But for a shattered population already in dire straits, any delay is too long.
"People are desperate because they have nothing in Tacloban," Mr Marco Boasso of the International
Organisation for Migration said.
Hundreds of soldiers and police were patrolling the streets and manning checkpoints in Tacloban on
Wednesday to try to prevent pillaging.
President Aquino has declared a "state of national calamity", allowing the government to impose price
controls and quickly release emergency funds.
Speaking in a CNN interview, he said that local officials who feared 10,000 had died in Tacloban may
have been "too close" to the disaster to give an accurate toll.
"Being in the centre of the destruction... there is emotional trauma associated with that particular estimate,"
he said.
"The figure I have right now is 2,000... so far about 2,000, 2,500 is the figure we're working on," Mr
Aquino added, though he admitted the toll still could rise.
The latest official government death toll stands at 1,798, although authorities have said they have not come
close to accurately assessing the number of bodies lying amid the rubble or swept out to sea.
And international aid groups said they feared what was known now was just the tip of the iceberg.
"Obviously the situation in Tacloban is appalling but we are also very concerned about outlying islands,"
Mr Patrick Fuller, Red Cross spokesman in the Asia-Pacific, told AFP.
"There are a lot of them and I think it will be days, if not weeks, before we have a clear picture."
Haiyan's sustained winds when it hit Samar island, where it first made landfall, reached 315 kilometres an
hour, making it the strongest typhoon in the world this year and one of the most powerful ever recorded.
Typhoon Haiyan: Therapists help survivors
deal with psychological fallout
Published on Nov 13, 2013
1:14 PM
People covering their faces pass a car in debris after super typhoon Haiyan battered Tacloban City, in central Philippines on
Nov 13, 2013. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AFP) - Dozens of psychologists were starting work in the typhoon-raked
Philippines on Wednesday to help dazed survivors deal with the psychological fallout of one of the
country's worst ever disasters.
The operation is an early attempt by health professionals to head off what they fear could be serious
problems down the road, even as the physical scars from the tragedy begin to heal.
There have been sporadic incidents of riots and looting, including the storming of a rice warehouse that left
eight people dead, and experts warn these could spiral if the root causes - loss and helplessness - are not
addressed.
"We are worried that in the next few days, there will be anarchy," said Ms Annabelle de Veyra, chief
administrator of the health department for the region.
"Two big stores have already been looted. It's not just food that they are getting. It's more of a
psychological reaction," she told AFP.
"People from Tacloban are not like that. They need psychological counselling," she added.
A 55-member team of psychologists from the health department arrived in Tacloban on Tuesday to help
some of the city's 220,000 inhabitants deal with the disaster, which is feared to have cost as many as
10,000 lives.
Stories of almost unimaginable tragedy abound in Tacloban, a place where parents have been forced to
abandon the bodies of their children as they struggle to hold on to their own shattered lives.
Those who have the strength are trying to flee the stench of death that hangs in the city; others wander its
broken streets, dazed by the magnitude of the horror they have confronted.
Dr Nedy Tayag, a clinical psychologist for the health department, told AFP that behaviour being exhibited
by the typhoon survivors was typical among those confronted by massive disasters or destructive conflict.
"Their reaction is normal in light of the abnormal situation," the doctor said.
Dr Tayag, who worked with survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as well as victims of other
earthquakes and conflicts in the region, said Typhoon Haiyan was by far the worst disaster she had been
involved with, and it was imperative that issues be addressed early.
"It could lead to mental breakdown, emotional imbalance, confusion and depression," she said.
The focus of the health department experts would be "psychological intervention" that could involve
therapy and counselling sessions of both individuals and groups.
Ms De Veyra, the regional health official, said many of the survivors will need stress debriefing to combat
their psychological reaction to the sight of water after the coastal city was flattened by deadly storm surges.
She said the mental trauma of an event of this magnitude affected everyday behaviour and decisionmaking.
"Here people are walking to and fro, dazed. If there is a queue, they automatically line up for it," she said.
Looters were not only grabbing food, but also big appliances like refrigerators and washing machines, she
said.
"They are hoarding everything. These are psychological effects," said Ms de Veyra, a trained nurse whose
experience as a disaster responder included working with the victims of Typhoon Nargis in Myanmar
which killed 138,000 people in 2008.
Dr Tayag said Tacloban looters were reacting to having lost everything to nature's wrath and the
helplessness they felt.
"There is a justification: 'I do not have anything but now I have the means to acquire them.'
It's all about knowing that they are in control - they call the shots," she said.
Typhoon Haiyan: Philippines forces in
gunfight: TV
Published on Nov 13, 2013
4:16 PM

A man walks inside a mall that has been flooded and allegedly looted after Typhoon Hayian hit Tacloban city, Leyte
province, central Philippines on Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013. Philippine security forces exchanged fire on Wednesday with
armed men amid widespread looting of shops and warehouses for food, water and other supplies in the aftermath of super
typhoon Haiyan, local television reported. -- PHOTO: AP
TACLOBAN, Philippines (REUTERS) - Philippine security forces exchanged fire on Wednesday with
armed men amid widespread looting of shops and warehouses for food, water and other supplies in the
aftermath of super typhoon Haiyan, local television reported.
The firefight occurred in the village of Abucay, part of worst-hit Tacloban in Leyte province, said ANC
Television.
Military officials were unable to immediately confirm the fighting
Typhoon Haiyan: Mass burial cancelled as
Philippine survivors' anger turns deadly
Published on Nov 13, 2013
8:32 PM
Members of the International Search and Rescue team from Germany prepare their equipment at a military Base in Manila
on Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013. Gunfire forced the cancellation of a mass burial in the typhoon-ravaged Philippines on
Wednesday as the authorities struggled to dispose of the dead, while anger among survivors at the slow trickle of aid turned
deadly. -- PHOTO: AFP
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AFP) - Gunfire forced the cancellation of a mass burial in the typhoon-ravaged
Philippines on Wednesday as the authorities struggled to dispose of the dead, while anger among survivors
at the slow trickle of aid turned deadly.
Thousands of people jostled and begged for seats on scarce flights out of the ruined city of Tacloban,
where putrefying corpses compounded a growing health menace after one of the strongest storms on record
killed thousands.
Attempts to bury some of the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan suffered a setback when gunshots halted a
convoy travelling towards a communal grave.
"We had finished digging the mass burial site. We had the truck loaded with bodies... but... there was some
shooting," Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez told AFP. "They could not proceed."
Adding to the grim body count, news emerged that eight people were crushed to death on Tuesday when a
huge crowd of survivors from the typhoon rushed a government rice store.
"One wall of our warehouses collapsed and eight people were crushed and killed instantly," the National
Food Authority's Rex Estoperez said of the incident in Alangalang town, 17km from Tacloban.
Five days after Haiyan ripped apart entire coastal communities, the situation in Leyte's provincial capital
Tacloban was becoming ever more dire with essential supplies low and increasingly desperate survivors
clamouring to leave.
"Everyone is panicking," Captain Emily Chang, a navy doctor, told AFP.
"They say there is no food, no water. They want to get of here," she added, saying doctors at the airport
had run out of medicine, including antibiotics.
"We are examining everyone but there's little we can do until more medical supplies arrive."
The World Health Organization said there were significant injuries that needed to be dealt with, even as
medics worked to prevent outbreaks of diseases caused by cramped living conditions and dirty drinking
water.
It cautioned regular health needs also had to be met, including the 12,000 babies expected to be born this
month to the more than 11.3 million people affected.
The United Nations estimates 10,000 people may have died in Tacloban alone, where 5m waves flattened
nearly everything in their path as they swept hundreds of metres across the low-lying land.
However, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said late on Tuesday he believed that number was "too
much", adding that 2,500 "is the figure we're working on", despite the rapidly climbing toll and the bodies
still littering the streets of Tacloban.
Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras admitted the authorities had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of
corpses.
"The reason the body recovery stopped is because we ran out of body bags," he said. "But we now have
4,000 bags. I am not saying the casualties are 4,000. We are making sure there is an oversupply."
At Tacloban airport, AFP journalists witnessed exhausted and famished survivors pushing and shoving
each other to get on one of the few flights out of the city.
Philippines Airlines said it was laying on six planes a day, each with 75 seats.
"We have been here for three days and we still cannot get to fly out," said a frail Ms Angeline Conchas,
who was waiting for space on a plane with her seven-year-old daughter Rogiel Ann. "We made it out, but
now we may die from hunger."
Overwhelmed and under-resourced rescue workers have been unable to provide food, water, medicines,
shelter and other relief supplies to some of the 673,000 made homeless, and desperation has been growing
across the disaster zones.
The international community continues to pledge help. The United States and Britain are sending warships
carrying thousands of sailors to the Philippines, and US amphibious craft were also being deployed.
All were expected to arrive over the next few days. But for a shattered population already in dire straits,
any delay is too long.
"People are desperate because they have nothing in Tacloban," Mr Marco Boasso of the International
Organization for Migration said.
Hundreds of soldiers and the police were patrolling the streets and manning checkpoints in Tacloban to try
to prevent pillaging and the government said roads were now passable throughout the area, raising hope
that relief might finally reach those in need.
But a curfew was coming into force again on Wednesday evening as troops fanned out to preserve order in
the dark.
Mr Aquino has declared a "state of national calamity", allowing the government to impose price controls
and quickly release emergency funds.
Mr Aquino's figure of up to 2,500 deaths looked set to be easily surpassed. By early afternoon on
Wednesday the government said 2,275 people were known to have died and 80 were still missing.
International aid groups said they feared that the final count would be much worse.
"Obviously the situation in Tacloban is appalling but we are also very concerned about outlying islands,"
Mr Patrick Fuller, Red Cross spokesman in the Asia-Pacific, told AFP.
"There are a lot of them and I think it will be days, if not weeks, before we have a clear picture.
"No one is in a position to give an accurate figure. In Tacloban bodies are lying by the side of roads but
those are just the ones that are visible. If you look around at the amount of wreckage caused you can see
that people might have been taken out by a tidal surge," he said.
"It's too early but (the death toll) will definitely be in the thousands."
Typhoon Haiyan: Herculean task to get to
Tacloban
Published on Nov 13, 2013
11:23 PM
Military personnel and relief supplies being loaded up a C-130 on the tarmac of Brigadier General Benito N Ebuen Air Base
(also known as Mactan Air Base) on Nov 13, 2013. -- ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM
By Raul Dancel
It would normally have been a short, relaxing flight. Four hours from Singapore to Cebu, and then an hour
from Cebu to Tacloban. Except that this time, we were heading towards a totally different Tacloban.
Tacloban now is a wasteland, the entire city levelled by Super Typhoon Haiyan. No electricity, no water
supply, no food, and the streets are littered with debris – and corpses.
We managed to get to Cebu without much trouble. Getting to Tacloban, however, proved to be a
Herculean task.
We spent the whole day scouring Cebu for a way to get there.
We first tried securing a commercial flight, but they were all fully booked. The next available flight, on
Philippine Airlines, was on Sunday.
We then went to Mactan Air Base, hoping to beg for a couple of seats on one of the Philippine Air Force’s
C-130 transport planes. When we got there at mid-afternoon, however, we found that hundreds of others
were thinking of the same thing. Rescue workers, volunteers, people hoping to get their families out of
Tacloban and journalists were already there, waiting since 4am to board a plane.
One officer told me to put my name and that of my colleague, Straits Times photojournalist Kevin Lim, on
a list and come back the next day, but he still would not guarantee we would get our share of what
apparently had become a very precious piece of real estate inside a C-130.
We left as the sun set, with our options whittled down to taking a ferry from Cebu to Ormoc, a city also in
Leyte and two hours away from Tacloban. From there, we would have to arrange to get to Tacloban by
land.
But this was the least attractive option. It would entail a land journey fraught with dangers. We’ve heard of
two convoys carrying relief goods ambushed while making their way from Ormoc to Tacloban.
Just when we were about to give up, Lady Luck smiled on us.
We overheard someone saying that Cebu Pacific had opened a flight from Cebu to Tacloban, and that we
could book online. On hearing that, my colleague Kevin rushed to the nearest computer with Internet
access, whipped out his credit card and booked us a flight.
We leave on Thursday morning.
rdancel@sph.com.sg
Typhoon Haiyan: Boy, 13, stabbed and
slashed as fear grips Philippine city
Published on Nov 13, 2013
9:41 PM
A Filipino man walks among debris from damaged homes at typhoon-hit Tacloban city, Leyte province, central Philippines
on Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013. As anarchy spread across a Philippine city demolished by one of the world's strongest
typhoons, a 13-year-old boy holding a toy car and walking alone at night was slashed across the neck and stabbed in the
stomach. -- PHOTO: AP
TACLOBAN, Philippines (AFP) - As anarchy spread across a Philippine city demolished by one of the
world's strongest typhoons, a 13-year-old boy holding a toy car and walking alone at night was slashed
across the neck and stabbed in the stomach.
Jonathan Salayco said he was on the debris-strewn streets of disaster-hit Tacloban when two men he did
not know pounced late on Tuesday, attacking him with a knife before disappearing without a trace.
"He was still holding his toy car," said Ms Mina Joset, a Red Cross nurse at Tacloban hospital where
Salayco was brought in on Wednesday morning.
Residents of Leyte's ruined provincial capital - where bodies still line roads - are living in fear after looters
ran wild in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, on Friday.
The category five storm killed hundreds or possibly thousands in Tacloban, flattening buildings and cutting
off power, water, electricity and communications. Authorities there are struggling to deliver much-needed
food and medical supplies to an increasingly desperate population.
Salayco had a slit throat and stab wound in his stomach, according to Ms Joset, but due to a lack of
medical supplies at the overwhelmed hospital, doctors could only temporarily dress his wounds.
"For a boy like him, this is a serious injury," the nurse said.
Fortunately for Salayco, officials were able to get him on a military helicopter that took him to a hospital
on another island for further treatment.
Famished and destitute survivors desperately searched for food following the storm, some resorting to
looting. Others took advantage of the post-disaster chaos to steal not only food and water but also
consumer items from televisions to toys.
To restore law and order, the government has sent almost 2,000 police, soldiers and special forces to patrol
and man checkpoints on Leyte island. A night-time curfew is also in force.
On Wednesday, gunshots forced the postponement of a mass burial of typhoon victims, the mayor of
Tacloban told AFP.
Local doctor Corazon Rubio survived last week's typhoon that killed 10 of her neighbours but she said it
the aftermath that left her terrified.
"What is frightening is the looting," Dr Rubio told AFP.
"They would get TV sets from the houses. Of what use are they? We don't even have electricity," she
asked despairingly.
Terrified shop owners have fled, fearing that their families would be targeted.
"The businesses of Tacloban are all leaving... because of safety issues," Alfred Li, head of the local
chamber of commerce, said.
He told how organised gangs had broken into warehouses, taking the most expensive items, while
individual looters help themselves to the rest.
Presidential spokesman Ramon Carandang has sought to play down security fears.
"There have been so many reports of looting and rape which have turned out not to be correct," he told
ABS-CBN television.
Manila police officer Julian Bagawayan said 150 members of his riot police squad were in Tacloban,
conducting curfew foot patrols which started on Monday night.
"We are here to stop people looting properties and breaking into homes," he said.
"If we see people loitering after dark, we will advise them to go indoors. If they refuse, there are laws
applicable to them."
Typhoon Haiyan: US sends more planes to
Philippines
Published on Nov 14, 2013
6:01 AM
A forklift vehicle delivers boxes of US aid to a KC-130 military cargo plane before it flies to the coastal city of Tacloban
which bore the brunt of Typhoon Haiyan when it swept through the central Philippines.The United States voiced optimism
on Wednesday about reaching parts of the Philippines cut off by a massive typhoon as it sent more cargo planes and versatile
Osprey aircraft to help. -- PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States voiced optimism on Wednesday about reaching parts of the
Philippines cut off by a massive typhoon as it sent more cargo planes and versatile Osprey aircraft to help.
The USS George Washington carrier and other Navy ships are on their way to the US ally and American
has committed US$20 million (S$24.9 million), roughly half for food and the rest to prevent diseases in the
wake of Typhoon Haiyan.
"I would say we are cautiously optimistic that we are starting to turn a corner on some of the logistics
challenges," a US official told reporters on a conference call.
The Philippines faced a daunting task after the initial hit of the historically strong typhoon last week, with
supplies piling up at the small airport in the flattened city of Tacloban.
The official said relief workers were now able to get more aid out of the airport and that the opening of a
land route has provided a significant boost by connecting to a port.
"We are cautiously optimistic that that will be a pretty significant game-changer," he said.
The initial effort was "a lot like trying to squeeze an orange through a straw. We are now getting more
straws, if you will, and bigger straws," he said.
Another US official said "well up over 1,000" American troops could be on the ground by the end of the
week, up from around 300.
The US Marines Corps said four MV-22 Ospreys have left the US Futenma base in Japan, expanding the
number of Osprey aircraft involved in the emergency work to eight.
Part helicopter and part plane, the Osprey can land and take off like a helicopter but fly at the speed of an
airplane, covering four times the distance of a traditional chopper.
Eight MC-130 cargo aircraft, a variant of the Hercules plane, also were deployed to reinforce the relief
operation for victims of Typhoon Haiyan, increasing the fleet of cargo planes to 12 to help with deliveries
of food, water and other emergency items.
As of Tuesday, a team of US Marines already on the ground has delivered 129,000 pounds of relief
supplies for the effort dubbed "Operation Damayan," or "Help in Time of Need." The USS George
Washington, to arrive shortly, is escorted by two cruisers and a destroyer. It also comes with 11 helicopters
as well as dozens of planes and the capacity to desalinate large volumes of water.
Another American destroyer and a supply ship were en route to the disaster zone and two amphibious ships,
the USS Germantown and the USS Ashland, set off on Tuesday from the port of Sasebo in southern Japan.
The Germantown and the Ashland are equipped with landing craft and amphibious vehicles, medical
facilities and desalination systems.
Another amphibious ship, the USS Denver, remains on standby in Sasebo for deployment, a Navy official
said.
According to UN estimates, 10,000 people may have died in the typhoon and nearly 10 million people - or
10 per cent of the Philippines' population - have been affected.