Typhoon death toll tops 1,700, likely to soar much higher

Bloated bodies lie in the streets, in front of houses, on bridges, in the water, wherever the giant wall of water happened to dump them when Typhoon Haiyan hit.

The desperate survivors scrounging for food amid the mountains of debris use cloth to shield their noses from the overpowering stench of rotting corpses. Some relatives have been trying to bury their dead, but in too many cases, there is no one to cart away the corpses littering the city of Tacloban, which was all but decimated by one of the most powerful storms to ever make landfall.

"Those are dead people in front of our house and the smell is awful," a woman told a reporter from The Guardian newspaper.
"The sister of the dead man came to see her brother, but she couldn't take him away, she just cried. What else can she do?" the woman asked. "There is nowhere to take him, nothing to do."

The typhoon struck Friday with 147-mph winds and a 20-foot fall of seawater. Authorities estimate the storm killed 10,000 or more people, but so far no one has been able to count all the bodies.
And with shattered communications and transportation links, the final count was likely days away. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said "we pray" it does not surpass 10,000.

The government raised the official death toll Tuesday to 1,744, with the final number expected to be much higher.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council also said 2,487 people were hurt.
Both figures are expected to climb drastically.,/p>
Authorities estimated that the storm displaced about 660,000 others.
"I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way - every single building, every single house," U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over Tacloban, the largest city in Leyte province. He spoke on the tarmac at the airport, where two Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked, engines running, unloading supplies.

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Red Cross official describes "complete devastation" in Tacloban

Authorities said at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces were affected by the typhoon, known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia but called Yolanda in the Philippines. It was likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation.
"Help. SOS. We need food," read a message painted by a survivor in large letters on Tacloban's port.
more info at - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57611701/philippines-typhoon-survivors-plead-for-help-as-scale-of-devastation-becomes-clear/