One of the most powerful storms recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away entire coastal villages and devastating the region's main city.

Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said chief superintendent Elmer Soria, a regional police director.

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many described as similar to a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.

The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 killed.

"We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Soria told Reuters. "The devastation is so big."

Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte's capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila, with hundreds of bodies piled on the sides of roads and pinned under wrecked houses.

The city and nearby villages as far as one kilometer from shore were flooded by the storm surge, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes. TV footage showed children clinging to rooftops for their lives.

Many internet users urged prayers for survivors in the largely Roman Catholic nation on social media sites such as Twitter.

"From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometer inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami," said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who had been in Tacloban since before the typhoon struck the city.

"I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."

Mila Ward, an Australian citizen and Filipino by birth who was in Leyte on vacation visiting her family, said she saw hundreds of bodies on the streets.

"They were covered with blankets, plastic. There were children and women," she said.

Six people were killed and dozens wounded during heavy winds and storms in central Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially since hitting the Philippines with winds gusts of up to 275 kph (170 mph).

LOOTERS TAKE WHAT THEY CAN

Vietnam authorities have moved 883,000 people in 11 central provinces to safe zones, according to the government's website. Despite weakening, the storm is likely to cause heavy rains, flooding, strong winds and mudslides as it makes its way north in the South China Sea.

Looters rampaged through several stores in Tacloban, witnesses said, taking whatever they could find as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water were hampered by severed roads and communications.

"They are taking everything, even appliances like TV sets. These will be traded later on for food," said Tecson John Lim, the Tacloban city administrator.

"We don't have enough manpower. We have 2,000 employees but only about 100 are reporting for work. Everyone is attending to their families."

Lim said city officials had so far only collected 300-400 bodies, but believed the death toll in the city alone could be 10,000.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines are stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

The World Food Programme said it was airlifting 40 tons of high energy biscuits, enough to feed 120,000 people for a day, as well as emergency supplies and telecommunications equipment.

Tacloban city airport was all but destroyed as seawaters swept through the city, shattering the glass of the airport tower, leveling the terminal and overturning nearby vehicles.

A Reuters reporter saw five bodies inside a chapel near the airport, placed on pews.

Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four meters (13 feet).

"It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport," he said. "Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided."

The airport in the hard-hit province of Leyte was "washed out" and only military cargo planes have been able to land on the runway, said Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla, a former governor of the eastern province.

"We don't have an airport there now," he told a Manila radio interview. "Sometimes I don't know what we will do. The damage is overwhelming."

"There are a lot of dead bodies. We haven't counted them yet. We are too busy to count," Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said on Saturday. "We are managing the dead bodies, we don't want them scattered there."

Meanwhile, more than 450,000 military personnel have been mobilized in Vietnam, which was bracing itself for the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan on Sunday.

Thousands of boats and rescue vehicles were being put on standby, mainly in central provinces, newspaper Tuoi Tre reported Saturday.

Some 20,000 families were being evacuated in several districts in Da Nang city, with the operation expected to end by 7 p.m. (1200 GMT). More than 200,000 people were being moved out of nearby Quang Ngai province.

All schools in Quang Nam and Binh Dinh provinces have been closed, the newspaper said.

"This is the strongest typhoon in history over the East Sea," said Bui Minh Tang, director of the Central Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center.

"It can be compared with other strongest storms on the earth such as typhoons Andrew and Katrina in the U.S., and typhoon Nargis in Myanmar," Tuoi Tre quoted the official as saying.

Caroline Mills, a British travel writer who lives near Hoi An a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourism destination in Quang Nam province said evacuations had already started in her village.

"Most of our village has nowhere to go, so will stay," she said.

"The government has opened some schools for villagers with nowhere else to go to take shelter. They have also told everyone that they only need to go away for one night."

Haiyan is expected to make landfall in the central provinces of Vietnam early Sunday as a category 1 or 2 typhoon, according to the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It is expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday morning.

The storm entered the South China Sea after crossing the Philippines.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-typhoon-philippines-20131109,0,3679286.story

Aerial photo shows houses flattened by Typhoon Haiyan in the town of Guiuan in Samar province, central Philippines on November 11.

U.S. military personnel load relief goods for victims of Typhoon Haiyan at a military base in Manila on November 11.

People ride past destruction in the coastal city of Tacloban. Many badly hit cities and islands were cut off, making it difficult to estimate the number of casualties early on.

A body lies amid the devastation in Tacloban.

People cover their noses to block the smell of bodies in Tacloban.

Bodies of victims lie along a road in Tacloban.

The storm approaches the Philippines in this satellite image taken November 7 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With sustained winds of 315 kph (195 mph) and gusts as strong as 380 kph (235 mph), Haiyan's wind strength makes it equivalent to an exceptionally strong Category 5 hurricane.

Lord Have Mercy. May God Rest the Dead!

A woman mourns in front of her husband's dead body in a street of Tacloban.

A resident passes victims' bodies on the street in Tacloban, a city in Leyte province.

The dead lie in floodwaters after the typhoon devastated the city of Tacloban. On Saturday, Philippine troops began to retrieve bodies strewn in areas devastated by the typhoon.

Haiyan moved towards Vietnam after battering the Philippines on Friday

The death toll and material damage estimates are expected to rise sharply as rescue workers and soldiers reach areas cut off by the massive storm.

Have you ever thought like I did albeit after analyzing the mess of Nigeria, that there is still plenty reasons to be grateful to God for making me(us) Nigerian. RIP to the dead Philipinos.

frodobee: Have you ever thought like I did albeit after analyzing the mess of Nigeria, that there is still plenty reasons to be grateful to God for making me(us) Nigerian. RIP to the dead Philipinos.

My guy, na so I dey think am o.... Imagine Nigeria having natural disasters like this in addition to our own man-made leadership and attitude disasters...

Scientist should find a way of dislodging this super typhoons with a nuclear bomb before it hits the land... *wierd thought*

Wondering if they mentioned our floods in the North in their forums, talk less about putting it on their front page.

In few words who cares? Racist smelly Asians pigs, they can all die .

Don't tell me its not end time things because its the sign

frodobee: Have you ever thought like I did albeit after analyzing the mess of Nigeria, that there is still plenty reasons to be grateful to God for making me(us) Nigerian. RIP to the dead Philipinos.

.

The earth is rebelling against its inhabitants, the earth is a living organism

Who can say where the road goes , where the road meet ONLY TIME

Mujah1deen: Wondering if they mentioned our floods in the North in their forums, talk less about putting it on their front page.

In few words who cares? Racist smelly Asians pigs, they can all die .

Why does death and the wish for same against others come as easy to an average Northerner of a certain Religion group

Mujah1deen: Wondering if they mentioned our floods in the North in their forums, talk less about putting it on their front page.

In few words who cares? Racist smelly Asians pigs, they can all die .

oh yeah the can all die because the don't believe in your arab God, u fool

The only natural disaster we have in Nigeria is our corrupt polithiefcians!!
RIP to the dead!

georgecso: Scientist should find a way of dislodging this super typhoons with a nuclear bomb before it hits the land... *wierd thought*

Good to know to knew it only a wierd thought.

oh my God! Are they all destined to die at the same time? Baba Jesus pls speak to this typhoon as you did in the bible!

really feel for them, our own typoon in africa is leadership.rip to the dead.