USA TODAY International Edition
Desperate search for survivors,
Ultra- violent storm left a huge swath of destruction, many dead
CEBU, PHILIPPINES After two days without news from her family since Typhoon Haiyan blasted through their hometown on Leyte Island, elementary teacher Cherry Gonzaga took action Sunday.
The nearest airport to home remained battered and closed, so she left Manila for Cebu City, then lined up for a late- night ferry.
“There’s no way to get through to them, and my entire family is there, 15 people,” said Gonzaga, 24, as she waited for tickets at a pier with dozens of other Filipinos desperate to learn whether their relatives are safe.
Across the Camotes Sea in Leyte, one of the worst- hit areas, police said thousands of people may be dead after Friday’s ultra- violent storm.
To curb looting by hungry residents in hard- hit Tacloban city — Leyte’s capital and air hub, now closed to all but military and relief flights — authorities dispatched more than 100 extra police officers Sunday.
“A privately owned chopper tried to land in Leyte Sunday but couldn’t, as the residents rushed it,” Frederick Bonjoc, public affairs officer at Cebu airport, said. “They were unafraid of getting hit by the chopper as they are desperate for supplies.”
The north part of Cebu Island also suffered extensive damage, he said. “In my mother’s hometown, Bogo city, 70 to 80% of houses have had their roofs blown off, but luckily none of my relatives were killed,” Bonjoc said.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported family tragedies in Tacloban. In one case, two men silently pushed a cart bearing the bloated bodies of a woman, her teenage son and her baby through the flooded downtown, the newspaper reported.
The woman, Erlinda Mingig, was a 48- year- old fish vendor who was trapped inside her one- story home with her two children.
“I told them to stay in the house because it was safer,” said her hus- band Rogelio, 48. The water rose so fast she couldn’t open the door to get out. “We found her embracing the children in one arm and grabbing onto the ceiling with the other.”
Residents of the spared capital of Manila said they were keeping a close eye on the destruction to the south.
“It’s worrying and devastating, the strongest typhoon ever,” said Lourdes Lozada, 50, an electrical engineer. “It will be really hard for them to recover, and it won’t be quick, but help is coming from inside and outside the Philippines.”
“I’ve been through many typhoons where roofs are blown off, but nothing this strong. The scariest part was the storm surge. People didn’t expect it would be like a tsunami.”
Regional Police Chief Elmer Soria said he was briefed by Leyte provincial Gov. Dominic Petilla late Saturday and told there were about 10,000 deaths on the island, mostly by drowning and collapsed buildings.
Maritess Tayag, in her 40s, and her sister, Maryann, 29, said rising floodwaters forced residents to the roofs of their homes in Tacloban.
“I was in the house — trapped in my room. The water is up to my nose — I cannot breathe anymore. I am trying to save myself,” said Maritess Tayag, describing the early hours of Saturday.
Her brother was in the house, too, trying to keep his head above the rising water, she said. But, “it reached up over his head. Then a big wave of fast flood reached up higher.”
Her younger sister and sister- inlaw made it to the roof. Her brother and mother did not.
“It’s all washed out ... including the hospitals and malls, by the strong winds and floods,” Maritess Tayag said.
“The hardest thing is ... seeing your mother floating in the flood and you don’t know what to do. You just see her there and the only thing is you have to save yourself,” Maryann Tayag said. “I could not save her be- cause she drowned already, and it was not just water from the sea but mixed with dirty water — black, like it came from the river and smelled like a canal.”
If the typhoon death toll is confirmed, it would be the deadliest natural catastrophe on record in the Philippines, topping the 5,100 killed by Tropical Storm Thelma in November 1991 and the 5,791 killed after a magnitude- 7.9 earthquake triggered a tsunami in the Moro Gulf in 1976.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel directed the U. S. military’s Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support searchand- rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies.
President Benigno Aquino III flew over Leyte by helicopter Sunday to get a firsthand look at the disaster. He said the government’s priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and deliver relief and medical assistance to victims.
“All systems are down,” said Voltaire Gazmin, Philippine defense secretary. “There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They’re looting.”