“The super typhoon likely made landfall with winds near 313kph. This makes Haiyan the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall,” said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at US-based Weather Underground.

About a million people took shelter in 29 provinces, after President Benigno Aquino appealed to people in Haiyan’s path to leave vulnerable areas, such as river banks, coastal villages and mountain slopes.

“Our school is now packed with evacuees,” an elementary school teacher in Southern Leyte, who gave her name only as Feliza, told a radio station. Leyte and Southern Leyte are about 630 kilometres southeast of Manila.

Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla reported a three-metre flood in one village in Leyte. “There is zero communication at the moment,” he told ANC television. “Roads are still impassable. There are some landslides,” said Roger Mercado, governor of Southern Leyte province.

More than 100 coastal homes were flattened, while landslides destroyed houses in the hills, but his province had suffered no casualties yet, he said.

In Samar province, links with some towns and villages had been cut.

“The whole province has no power,” Samar Governor Sharee Tan told Reuters by telephone. Fallen trees, toppled electric poles and other debris blocked roads, she said.

Authorities suspended ferry services and fishing and shut 13 airports. Nearly 450 domestic, and eight international, flights were suspended.

Schools, offices and shops in the central regions were shut, with hospitals, soldiers and emergency workers preparing rescue efforts. Twenty navy ships and military aircraft including three C-130 cargo planes and helicopters were on standby.

“Power is off all across the island and the streets are deserted,” said Lionel Dosdosa, an International Organisation for Migration coordinator on Bohol island, the epicentre of an October 15 earthquake that killed 222 people.

At the Sandcastles Beach Resort in Boracay, guests stayed indoors.