Manila: The super typhoon Haiyan has left in its trail a totally devastated central Philippines, along an east-west track the deadly tropical storm, the worst ever recorded, whipped
through, exiting from Basuanga, the last island of its rampage, to head for Vietnam. Ripping into Samar province from the Pacific at a wind gust of over 315 kmph on Friday morning, the storm is feared to have taken tens of thousands of lives by Saturday morning. Six of the
thousands of islands that constitute the archipelago were the worst affected. Of them, Leyte,
Samar and Cebu were annihilated. Unconfirmed reports said 10,000 people perished in the
city of Tacloban, capital of Leyte. In Samar, 300 people were found dead by Saturday while
2,000 were missing. Battered areas have been rendered inaccessible. Most deaths were from
drowning in storm surges and flood, falling trees and crashing buildings or flying debris.
Corpses were seen scattered all over and debris lay on streets and roads were blocked by
fallen trees everywhere. Bodies were even seen hanging from trees as storm surges were at
places rising as high as 6 metres. The Tacloban airport was reduced to a wasteland. Only
relief copters were flying in and out. Transport, water supplies, communication, power supply
are all down. It will be a couple of days more before the extent of devastation can be
assessed fully. According to the national disaster agency about 4 million people were affected,
even after evacuating about nearly one million. The US military's Pacific command has deployed ships and aircraft for rescue and relief operations. The UN is also readying emergency supplies which might take as long as till Tuesday to reach. It is an annual calamity
for the Philippines, prone to even frequent earthquakes, to bear as the islands are located in the warm south Pacific where the eye of the typhoons are germinated.
