A team of British medical experts and the first consignment of UK aid will leave shortly for the disaster-hit Philippines, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
Nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier USS George Washington also set sail yesterday, carrying about 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, and was joined by four other US Navy ships that should arrive in two to three days, the Pentagon said.
But the death toll from the massive typhoon that hit the Philippines is likely closer to 2,000 or 2,500, not the previously reported figure of 10,000, President Benigno Aquino told CNN yesterday.
“The figure right now I have is about 2,000, but this might still get higher,” he said in an interview on CNN’s website. “Ten thousand, I think, is too much. There was emotional drama involved with that particular estimate.”
President Aquino has declared a state of national calamity and deployed hundreds of soldiers in Tacloban, a once-vibrant port city of 220,000 that is now a corpse-choked wasteland without any sign of a government, as city and hospital workers focus on saving their families and securing food.
The UK team, led by Manchester University professor of international emergency medicine Anthony Redmond, will include three emergency physicians, two orthopaedic surgeons, one plastic surgeon, two accident and emergency nurses, one theatre nurse, two anaesthetists and one specialist physiotherapist.
Britain’s Government has already committed a total of £10 million in aid, with a Royal Navy warship and an RAF transport aircraft helping the recovery effort.
Welcoming an urgent appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), Mr Cameron said: “We’ve all seen the appalling devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan, with heart-breaking scenes played across our TV screens.
“The Disasters Emergency Committee appeal launch is a vital step to ensure aid agencies can provide relief to those most affected by this unprecedented disaster.
“Yesterday I announced Britain would increase its contribution to £10 million and send HMS Daring and an RAF C-17 to the area to support the relief operation. A 12-strong team of British surgeons and paramedics and the first cargo of UK aid will depart for the region very shortly.
“I am proud that the British public have always shown an unfailing generosity for helping those in need and I know their response to this appeal will be no different.”
The UK support will provide aid flights to Cebu in the eastern Philippines to deliver forklift trucks, cutting equipment, 4x4s and other kit to help clear and reopen runways and roads.
It will enable the delivery of life-saving supplies such as temporary shelters, blankets and water purification tablets to 300,000 people.
Buckets, soap and sanitary items will also be sent in a bid to prevent the spread of disease.
International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: “The scenes of utter devastation in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan are shocking in their scale and we know that the survivors, especially vulnerable children and women, now face a grim and uncertain future.
“Britain is determined to stand by the Philippines and we have now pledged a total of £10 million to get 800,000 people the food, water and shelter they urgently need.”
Aid organisations warned they were being hampered by widespread devastation as Save the Children said it was helping survivors who were having to cope with the “worst possible conditions’’.
Lynette Lim, of Save the Children, said: “We are working round the clock to offer the basic life essentials to the 4.3 million people we estimate are affected.
‘’We are witnessing the complete devastation of a city. In Tacloban everything is flattened. Bodies litter the street, many, many of which are children. From what I saw, two out of every five bodies was a child.
“We fear for how many children have been washed away in floods, crushed under buildings and hurt by debris. Many are separated from their families and all are in desperate need of food, water and shelter.’’
“There are hundreds of other towns and villages stretched over thousands of kilometres that were in the path of the typhoon and with which all communication has been cut,” said Natasha Reyes from Médecins Sans Frontières.
“No one knows what the situation is like in more rural and remote places, and it’s going to be some time before we have a full picture.”
She described the devastation as unprecedented for the Philippines, a disaster-prone archipelago of more than 7,000 islands that has about 20 typhoons a year, likening the storm to “a massive earthquake followed by huge floods”.
About 660,000 people have been displaced and many have no access to food, water or medicine, the United Nations said. (PA, Reuters)