International Relief Efforts Picking up in Typhoon-Hit Philippines | WPN World People News

The Pentagon is sending an aircraft carrier as part of the U.S. drive to accelerate aid efforts in the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines, where 10,000 people are feared dead and many more displaced.

Some of the affected areas had still not been reached on Tuesday, four days after Typhoon Haiyan plowed through the remote island region with historically powerful winds and tsunami-like waves.

Aid has so far been slow to reach the 660,000 people estimated by the U.N. to have been displaced by the storm. Many have no access to food, water or medicine. There have been reports of widespread looting in Tacloban, the worst-hit city.

International relief efforts have begun to pick up. On Monday, the U.S. announced that it is providing $20 million in humanitarian aid. It is also sending the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier with 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft on board.

Dozens of U.S. Marines are already helping Philippine authorities with relief efforts. Captain Cassandra Gesecki, a PIO with the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, told VOA the extensive damage makes it challenging to deliver help.

"There's trees uprooted, no limbs, no rooftops, no walls. You know, the roads are completely untenable. You can't get through anywhere. Which is difficult, because if you can fly the supplies in, it makes it difficult getting them where they need to go," said Gesecki.

Captain Gesecki said that her unit is delivering aid using a mixture of KC-130 cargo planes and the MD-22 Osprey, which is able to take off and land vertically.

"The KC-130s are providing a lot of the heavy lift capabilities. Obviously they're big planes, they're able to land on runways. But then once we get the KC-130s to Tacloban or other areas with runways, we're able to bring in our MD-22 Ospreys, or tilt rotor aircraft. And they're capable of going to more remote locations if it's deemed we need to go there and bring supplies to some of the smaller islands," explained Gesecki.

The Philippines has already sent troops to the worst-hit village of Tacloban, where local officials fear as many as 10,000 people may be dead. However, as of Tuesday, aid distribution was slow, as soldiers worked to prevent looting in the fishing village.

Photographs and video circulating Monday showed hundreds of people returning from the hills around Tacloban only to find mounds of wreckage where their homes had stood in the once-thriving city of 220,000 residents.

Other amateur footage showed streets that still are strewn with decomposing bodies while dazed residents slog through flattened neighborhoods, looking for signs of life.

Elizabeth Tromans with Catholic Relief Services says there is "total devastation" in Tacloban, located on the eastern side of the island of Leyte. However, she told VOA that the true extent of the destruction is only just beginning to become known.

"We're just starting to hear more and more about the devastation outside of the city. The devastation is also really widespread even on the western side of the island," said Tromans.

Tromans also pointed out although that many residents prepared emergency goods and took shelter ahead of the storm, the storm was so powerful that even among the most well-prepared, many people are now left with nothing.

Source: Voice of America