Hundreds of thousands of people across the central Philippines are homeless, upwards of a thousand people are known to be dead and that figure will get worse.  The most powerful storm ever recorded is now expected to head towards Vietnam.

The concept of Storm Surge, let alone a three-meter storm surge, really wasn’t well known in the area before Typhoon Yolanda (called Haiyan elsewhere), as most typhoons tend to strike the northern islands. 

Bodies are still washing up on the beaches.  Emergency workers and volunteers have been collecting the dead from the streets, and rescuing the non-ambulatory.  Thousands of buildings, that were little more than timber framing and corrugated cladding, are flattened. 

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin says, “All systems are down. There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They're looting.” 

Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, fears more than a thousand people are dead in Tacloban City alone, where the storm surge swamped the town.

“Our people, they saw a lot of bodies floating and we're preparing for support, for management of remains,” she said.

Relief workers are still struggling to deliver food and aid with roads blocked by landslides and fallen trees. The devastation in the central part the country has also made it dangerous to land helicopters that could be used to deliver supplies.