The death toll in the Philippines from the massive Super Typhoon Haiyan is predicted to reach as high as 1,200, as officials sort through the wreckage of the coastal areas.
“We estimate 1,000 people were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province,” said Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, according to CNN.
Though the official death toll, according to the government, was 138 dead, 14 injured and four missing, the Red Cross expected to have more precise numbers on Sunday.
“Probably the casualty figure will increase as we get more information from remote areas, which have been cut off from communications,” said Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF’s Philippines representative.
The typhoon was described as one of the strongest to make landfall in recorded history. It affected 4.3 million people in 36 provinces. Though more than 800,000 people were evacuated, the typhoon still caused untold death and destruction. More than 330,000 people were still in the region’s 1,223 evacuation centers and, according to the National Risk Reduction and Management Council, more than 70,000 families were affected, and nearly 350,000 people were displaced, while thousands of houses were destroyed.
In Tacloban, officials said they found more than 100 bodies scattered on the streets of the coastal city.
“We expect the greatest number of casualties there,” said Lt. Jim Aris Alago, information officer for Navy Central Command. He said people were wading through waist-high water, and overturned vehicles, downed utility poles and trees were blocking roads and delaying the aid effort.
The speed of the storm, clocked at 41 mph, meant residents didn’t have to wait very long for the storm to end. As they emerged Saturday from their homes and shelters, residents walked to supermarkets through streets littered with debris, looking for water and food. A woman wept over one of the bodies found at a chapel.
Tacloban, the largest city in the Eastern Visayas Islands, was an important logistical base during World War II and served as a temporary capital of the Philippines.
For a time during the storm, clouds covered the entire 1,120 mile-long stretch of the Philippines, equivalent to the distance between Florida and Canada. The tropical storm-force winds covered an area the size of Germany.
The storm was powered by 195-mph winds and gusts up to 235 mph.
“It is like a tsunami has hit here,” CNN’s Paula Hancocks said from Tacloban.
Super Typhoon Haiyan hit Philippine structures with a force 3.5 times greater than Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Though Haiyan may be the strongest tropical cyclone in recorded history, meteorologists said they will need more time to establish whether it is a record.
“The winds were the strongest that I felt in more than 20 years,” said Clarson Fruelda of Cebu City. “These past few weeks were really tough for my wife and I and probably for Cebuanos as well since it was just a few weeks ago when we were hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake.”
