Philippine survivors loot, dig up water pipes, 670,000 displaced

Five days after one of the strongest storms ever recorded slammed into cities and towns in the central Philippines, anger and frustration boiled over on Wednesday as essential supplies dwindled. Some survivors scrawled signs reading "Help us".

Controversy also emerged over the death toll. President Benigno Aquino said local officials had overstated the loss of life, saying it was closer to 2,000 or 2,500 than the 10,000 previously estimated. His comments, however, drew scepticism from some aid workers.

Some areas appeared to teeter near anarchy amid widespread looting of shops and warehouses for food, water and supplies.

There were reports of gunfire between security forces and armed men near a mass grave in worst-hit Tacloban in Leyte province, but city administrator Tecson John Lim denied the clash based on information he had received from the army.

Eight people were crushed to death when looters raided rice stockpiles in a government warehouse in the town of Alangalang, causing a wall to collapse, local authorities said.

Other looters still managed to cart away 33,000 bags of rice weighing 50 kg each, said Orlan Calayag, administrator of the state-run grain agency National Food Authority.

Warehouses owned by food and drinks company Universal Robina Corp and drug company United Laboratories were ransacked in the storm-hit town of Palo in Leyte, along with a rice mill in Jaro.

Tacloban city administrator Tecson John Lim said 90% of the coastal city of 220,000 people had been destroyed, with only 20% of residents receiving aid. Houses were now being looted because warehouses were empty, while some survivors in Tacloban dug up water pipes in their desperate need for water.

Resident Rachel Garduce said the aid – 3 kg of rice and 1 litre of water per household a day – was not enough in her ravaged Tacloban neighbourhood. Her aunt in Manila, 580 km to the north, was travelling by road and ferry to bring supplies.

THOUSANDS REPORTED MISSING

The government has been overwhelmed by the force of the typhoon, which destroyed large swathes of Leyte province where local officials have said they feared 10,000 people died, many drowning in a tsunami-like surge of seawater.

Aquino, who has been on the defensive over his handling of the disaster, said the government was still gathering information from various storm-struck areas and the death toll may rise. "Ten thousand, I think, is too much," Aquino told CNN in an interview. "There was emotional drama involved with that particular estimate."

Official confirmed deaths stood at 2,275 on Wednesday, with only 84 missing, a figure aid workers consider off the mark.

The preliminary number of missing, according to the Red Cross, is 22,000. Pang cautioned that figure could include people who have since been located.

Google, which has set up websites to help people share and look for information about missing persons during catastrophes, currently lists some 65,500 people as missing from the typhoon. The Person Finder website allows anyone to list a person missing and to search the database for names.

But Google staff warned against reading too much into the data, pointing out that a similar website set up after the Japanese tsunami in 2011 listed more than 600,000 names, far higher than the final death toll of nearly 20,000.

CHAOTIC EVACUATION

There are not enough flights from Tacloban airport to cope with the exodus from this stricken town. As darkness fell on Wednesday, Philippine Special Forces held back hundreds of people, many of whom had walked for hours to reach the airport and then waited for days with little or no food or water.

Many people complained that military families were given priority to board the C-130 cargo planes out of Tacloban. "If you have a friend or relative in the military, you get priority," said Violeta Duzar, 57, who had waited at the airport since Sunday with eight family members, including children.

"They say 'Fall in line! Fall in line!' and we all line up. Then nothing happens," she said of the soldiers presiding over chaotic scenes.

More the 670,000 people have been displaced by the storm and nearly 12 percent of the population directly affected, the United Nations said.

The World Health Organisation said teams from Belgium, Japan, Israel and Norway had arrived in the Philippines to set up field hospitals.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington will arrive later this week, carrying about 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft. It has been joined by four other U.S. Navy ships.

The United States, a close ally and former colonial ruler of the Philippines, has also provided eight C-130 cargo planes for delivering aid.