TYPHOON HORRORS EMERGE

In Philippines, ravaged islands still cut off

MANILA People in the Philippines are struggling to comprehend the destruction that Typhoon Haiyan brought to this string of islands in the Pacific.

Corpses hang from trees and are scattered on sidewalks and in flattened buildings. People have raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.

As many as 10,000 people may have died when one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded destroyed villages and devastated cities with huge waves and winds of nearly 150 mph.

President Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, were “deeply saddened” and that the United States is providing assistance.

A weakened Haiyan made landfall early today on the coast of Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province. It had sustained winds of 75 mph with gusts to 98 mph, Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro- Meteorological Forecasting said. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from its path.

In the Philippines on Sunday, authorities were trying to reach islands that no one had been able to communicate with since the typhoon struck Friday. Frantic relatives crowded into the Villamor Air Base in Manila to wait for transport planes that were rescuing people from at least six of the archipelago’s more than 7,000 islands that were hit hardest.

Maritess Tayag, who is in her 40s, and her sister Maryann, 29, arrived at the airport dizzy, shaken and thirsty but elated to be alive. They came from their home in Tacloban on the island of Leyte, one of those that suffered the most. Maritess said her brother and mother are probably dead. “It was almost a stampede at the airport in Tacloban,” she said. “Everyone was trying to get on the plane. It’s really, really terrible.”

“This area has been totally ravaged,” said Sebastien Sujobert, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tacloban.

BULLIT MARQUEZ, AP Residents put up a makeshift shelter amid the debris in Tacloban in the Philippines’ Leyte province.