Typhoon Haiyan is one of the strongest storms to hit land, killing over 1,000 residents in the village of Tacloban alone, were Red Cross officials says bodies can be seen floating over the entire area, Reuters reported.
Haiyan made landfall in Central Philippines Friday afternoon after following a straight line from east to west, making already distant villages impossible to reach due to fallen trees and washed out roads, Reuters reported.
Philippines Red Cross Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang said Tacloban in the central Leyte province was hit the hardest with an estimated death toll of 1,000 which is expected to rise as a precise body count begins on the ground, according to Reuters.
"An estimated more than 1,000 bodies were seen floating in Tacloban as reported by our Red Cross teams," Pang told Reuters. "In Samar, about 200 deaths. Validation is ongoing."
Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the United Nations Disaster Assessment Coordination Team which was sent to Tacloban, said he's not seen destruction of this magnitude since the 2004 earthquake and tsunami that hit the region.
"The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, this is destruction on a massive scale,"Stampa told Reuters. "There are cars thrown like tumbleweed and the streets are strewn with debris."
Television footage shows toppled cars piled on top of each other and witnesses say there are bodies lying on the streets covered in plastic.
Major Rey Balido, a spokesman for the national disaster agency, said most houses were completely destroyed or washed away, with only a handful still standing, according to Reuters. The glass walls of the central Philippines airport shattered as waves hit, leveling the terminal completely.
According to the airport manager, Efren Nagrama, 47, waters rose up to 13 feet around the airport.
"It was like a tsunami,"Nagram told Reuters. "We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, sea water and wind swept through the airport. Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided."
Looters were shown taking everything from suitcases to household appliances from the city's biggest malls by local television network ABS-CBN, according to Reuters.
According to radio reports, casualties have been reported in tourist destinations as well: at least two were killed on the island of Cebu, three died in the Iloilo province, and three others were reported dead in Coron, a town in the southwestern Palawan province, Reuters reported.
