Scene after Typhoon Haiyan: People are walking like zombies, looking for food

Tacloban: As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food as supplies dwindled or searched for lost loved ones after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines.

“People are walking like zombies looking for food,” said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte. “It’s like a movie.”

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, levelling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.

“We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died,” police chief superintendent Elmer Soria Soria told Reuters.

Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte’s capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 580km southeast of Manila, with hundreds of bodies piled on the sides of roads and pinned under wrecked houses.

The city lies in a cove where the seawater narrows, making it susceptible to storm surges.

“From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometre inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami,” said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who had been in Tacloban before the typhoon struck the city.

“I don’t know how to describe what I saw. It’s horrific.”

There were reports of damage across much of the Visayas, a region of eight major islands, including Leyte, Cebu and Samar.

Many tourists were stranded.

“Seawater reached the second floor of the hotel,” said Nancy Chang, who was on a business trip from China in Tacloblan City and walked three hours through mud and debris for a military-led evacuation at the airport.

“It’s like the end of the world.”

Six people were killed and dozens wounded during heavy winds and storms in central Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially since hitting the Philippines.

Mobs attacked trucks loaded with food, tents and water on Tanauan bridge in Leyte, said Philippine Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon. “These are mobsters operating there.”

Tecson John Lim, the Tacloban city administrator, said city officials had so far only collected 300-400 bodies, but believed the death toll in the city alone could be 10,000.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four metres (13 feet).

“It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport,” he said. “Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard throughout until the water subsided.”