SEOUL — The super typhoon that tore through the Philippines and left a feared five-figure death toll beared down on central Vietnam on Sunday, already ranking as one of Asia's most damaging natural disasters in recent decades.
Survivors from a devastated chain of Filipino islands described a typhoon that had much the look of a tsunami, bringing waves as high as two-story buildings that noisily ground buildings into pulp. Though the storm blazed through on Friday, a partial picture of the damage is only now emerging as aid workers reach the damaged areas and communication lines slowly reopen.
Wire services on Sunday reported unconfirmed estimates of at least 10,000 dead. The city administrator in Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit areas, told the Associated Press that the casualties in his city alone "could go up to 10,000."
Tacloban, with a population of 220,000, is the provincial capital of Leyte, a mountainous island roughly the size of Delaware. On Samar, a slightly larger island nearby, provincial disaster office official Leo Dacaynos told the AP that 300 were dead, 2,000 were missing, and there are still parts of the island that have not been contacted.
As of Sunday morning, the Filipino government had confirmed only 151 deaths, but the official numbers will rise "substantially," President Benigno Aquino III said.
No matter the final casualty numbers, the storm leaves a trail of damage that this impoverished nation will be contending with for years. The typhoon affected 4.5 million people, nearly 5 percent of the country, and left nearly half a million displaced, according to a situation report from the Philippines' National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
The Philippines ranks among the world's most disaster-prone countries, and is hit annually by some 20 typhoons which build in the Pacific's deep, warm ocean water. The country is especially susceptible to damage because of ramshackle infrastructure. Many residents in the poorer areas live in shacks with corrugated metal roofs.
A typhoon last December killed more than 1,900 people. And last month a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Bohol province, killing more than 200. The World Bank said last year that the Philippines loses about 0.8 percent of its gross domestic product to disasters.
The typhoon — known in the Philippines as Yolanda and internationally as Haiyan — made landfall with sustained wind speeds of between 150 and 170 miles per hour. It threatens to become the deadliest Filipino storm on record, exceeding Tropical Storm Thelma, which killed 5,000 in 1991. Though that storm didn't have the wind speeds of Haiyan, it caused landslides, dam failures and flash flooding.
In the aftermath of Haiyan, photos and video showed towns torn into matchsticks, a few wind-whipped palm trees the last remnants of a skyline. In Tacloban, the airport had been reduced to a husk of twisted beams. Ships and tankers have been flung onto shore. Ivan Watson, a CNN reporter who arrived Sunday in Tacloban, said on Twitter that a business owner he'd spoken to fired a gun to hold back looters.
Filipino television reported that ATMs were also being looted, as well as malls and grocery stores. In Tacloban, police have been deployed to prevent the looting of fuel, according to the AP.
The Filipino government said on Saturday that it would speed up aid and food distribution to victims. "We have to move fast considering the extent of the devastation. People in the worst-hit areas need food, water and medicines," Corazon Juliano-Soliman, secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, said in a statement posted on the Web site of the president's office.
The United States military, which has a small footprint in the Philippines, said it will help search-and-rescue operations and provide other kinds of support, according to a U.S. Department of Defense statement.
Haiyan is forecast to make landfall in Vietnam late Sunday or early Monday, but it has weakened significantly to about 100 mph while traveling west. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese have been evacuated, cramming into storm shelters. In the meantime, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent notes to neighbors in the South China Sea, including China, asking them to help distressed Vietnamese fishermen.
Vietnam Airlines, the country's national carrier, was forced to cancel dozens of flights. Central Vietnam has already been hit by two other typhoons this season — Wutip and Nari — which, combined, destroyed thousands of homes.
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