Thousands of people have stormed a rice warehouse on an island devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, highlighting the urgent need to get water, food and medical supplies into an increasingly desperate region.
Five days after one of the strongest tropical storms on record levelled tens of thousands of houses in the central Philippines, relief operations are only starting to pick up pace, with two more airports in the region reopening, allowing for more aid flights.
But minimal food and water was reaching people in the devastated city of Tacloban, on Leyte Island, which bore the brunt of the storm, and outlying regions due to a lack of trucks and blocked roads.
“There is a bit of a logjam, to be absolutely honest, getting stuff in here,” said Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanit-arian Affairs.
There is a huge amount that we need to do. We have not been able to get into the remote communities
“You’ve had quite a lot of security coming in over the past couple of days, less so other things. So then it gets here and then we’re going to have a real challenge with logistics in terms of getting things out of here, into town, out of town, into the other areas,” he said from the airport in Tacloban.
“The reason for that essentially is that there are no trucks, the roads are all closed.”
In the first reported deaths as a result of looting, eight people were crushed to death when a wall collapsed as they and thousands of others stormed a warehouse on Leyte Island, said National Food Authority spokesman Rex Estoperez.
The looters in Alangalang municipality carted away up to 100,000 sacks of rice, he said.
Since the storm, people have broken into homes, malls and garages, where they have stripped the shelves of food, water and other goods. Authorities have struggled to stop the looting. There have been unconfirmed reports of armed gangs involved in some instances.
Police were working to keep order across the ravaged wasteland. An 8pm to 5am curfew was in place.
“We have restored order,” said Carmelo Espina Valmoria, director of the Philippine National Police special action force.
“There has been looting for the last three days, (but) the situation has stabilised.”
US Brigadier General Paul Kennedy said that his troops would install equipment at Tacloban airport to allow planes to land at night. Tacloban, a city of 220,000, was almost completely destroyed in Friday’s typhoon and has become the main relief hub.
A Norwegian ship carrying supplies left from Manila, while an Australian air force transport plane took off from Canberra carrying a medical team. British and American navy vessels are also en route to the region.
At the damaged airport in Tacloban, makeshift clinics have been set up and thousands of people were looking for a flight out. A doctor said supplies of antibiotics and anaesthetics have arrived for the first time.
“Until then, patients had to endure the pain,” said Dr Victoriano Sambale.
At least 580,000 people have been displaced by the disaster.
In some places, tsunami-like storm surges swept up to one mile inland, causing more destruction and loss of life. Most of the death and destruction appears concentrated on the islands of Samar and Leyte.
The damaged infrastructure and bad communications links made a conclusive death toll difficult to estimate.
The official toll from a national disaster agency rose to 2,275. President Benigno Aquino III told CNN in a televised interview that the toll could be closer to 2,000 or 2,500, lower than an earlier estimate from two officials on the ground who said they feared as many as 10,000 might be dead.
“There is a huge amount that we need to do. We have not been able to get into the remote communities,” UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said in Manila, launching an appeal for $301 million (€223m) to help the more than 11 million people estimated to be affected by the storm.
Cyclone numbers ‘average for year’
Apart from Typhoon Haiyan it has been an average year for tropical cyclones, according to the UN weather agency.
In its annual climate report The World Meteorological Organisation counted 86 tropical storms this year, just three short of the annual average since 1981. They were unevenly spread across the globe.
The Atlantic saw its quietest season since 1994 in terms of the intensity and duration of tropical storms, according to the report, which was released as UN climate talks continued in Warsaw.
Of the 12 named storms only two – Humberto and Ingrid – reached hurricane strength. Both were Category 1 hurricanes, the lowest level.
The Western North Pacific, however, had recorded 30 storms by early November, above the annual average of 26. Thirteen of them were typhoons, including Haiyan.
Storms that reach 74mph are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the northwest Pacific.
Typhoon Haiyan is one of the most powerful storms to make landfall anywhere, and it is feared to have killed thousands of people and affected more than nine million.
“Although individual tropical cyclones cannot be directly attributed to climate change, higher sea levels are already making coastal populations more vulnerable to storm surges,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
“We saw this with tragic consequences in the Philippines.”
The global sea level reached a record high in March this year, according to the report.
Since satellite measurements began in 1993, seas have been rising annually by about 3.2 milli-meters or just over one-tenth of an inch. Scientists believe it is a result of global warming.
The report also said 2013 is on track to become one of the top 10 hottest years on record.
The first nine months of the year were about 0.48 C warmer than average, meaning 2013 so far is tied with 2003 as the seventh-hottest year since the start of measurements in 1850, the WMO said. The hottest year on record is 2010.