Typhoon Haiyan: Flow Of Foreign Aid Quickens

More aid is reaching the desperate victims of Typhoon Haiyan, as the international relief effort continues to build momentum.

But as vital help arrives for more survivors, some in the worst-hit areas say they still have not seen any aid since the typhoon struck on Friday. 

The Philippines Government said it had received more than £56m in foreign aid so far and praised the "generous and swift response".

Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal reached £13m within 24 hours of its launch.

The city of Tacloban was destroyed in the disaster

DEC chief executive Saleh Saeed said: "People have given so generously in such a short space of time."

The United Nation's World Food Programme said nearly 50,000 people around the stricken city of Tacloban received rice in family food packages on Wednesday.

The packs include three kilogrammes of canned food and rice - enough to feed a family for a few days, the WFP said.

More packages will be handed out in the coming days as relief operations continue to reach more of the 11 million people affected by the disaster.

Residents take shelter in a Tacloban church

The Salvation Army UK and Ireland has launched its own appeal and a team in the Philippines is making arrangements with the Air Force to transport food parcels, water and medical supplies to Tacloban in in Leyte province.

Britain's first flight delivering humanitarian aid arrived earlier on Wednesday, the Government has said.

A chartered Boeing 777 carrying 8,836 shelter kits from UK Government stores in Dubai landed in Cebu City and will be delivered to those in worst-affected areas.

A team of US Marines already on the ground has given out relief supplies for the effort, called Operation Damayan, or Help in Time of Need.

A US Marine coordinates the loading of water at an air base near Manila

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos applauded the international community's reaction, but said much more needed to be done in a disaster of such magnitude.

Hundreds of thousands of people have had their homes damaged or destroyed and are in desperate need of food, water and shelter after the typhoon smashed into the island nation, leaving thousands dead.

Logistical bottlenecks have been holding up relief goods from reaching parts of the disaster zone.

Sky's Asia Correspondent Mark Stone, in the ruined village of Tabontabon in Leyte, said "at the moment no-one is here to help".

"Those who survived desperately need help. There is nothing like enough supplies or aid here and there is a depressing lack of co-ordination."

Homeless Tacloban residents inside a school

Tabontabon community leader Miguel Gamez said: "What we really need is food, safe drinking water and materials for us to build our houses."

In nearby Tacloban, the situation is also dire, with essential supplies low and increasingly desperate survivors jostling for aid.

Gunshots also reportedly forced the delay of a mass burial of victims in the ruined city.

Mayor Alfred Romualdez said: "We had finished digging the mass burial site. We had the truck loaded with bodies but there was some shooting. They could not proceed."

Eight people were also crushed to death in Alangalang town, 10 miles from Tacloban, after a huge crowd of typhoon survivors rushed a government rice warehouse, causing a wall to collapse.

The incident underlined the increasing sense of fear and desperation setting in among those battling to survive the aftermath of the typhoon.

Locals in Tacloban also reported seeing members of the army firing guns, as well as armed civilians in the street.

Meanwhile, it was reported that a 13-year-old boy who was walking alone through the city at night was slashed across the neck and stabbed in the stomach.

The country is struggling to cope with the number of bodies

The latest official government death toll stands at 2,344, with 3,804 injured and a further 79 missing.

But authorities have said they have not come close to accurately assessing the number of bodies lying amid the rubble or swept out to sea.

President Benigno Aquino has declared a "state of national calamity", allowing the government to impose price controls and quickly release emergency funds.

The US and the UK are sending warships to the Philippines, which will reach the region in the next few days.

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Sri Lanka: Cameron Urged To Raise Atrocities

Tamil: 'I Was Tortured And Raped

Updated: 3:08am UK, Thursday 14 November 2013

By Lisa Holland, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Navaneethan Subramaniam is not allowed out of the London mental health unit where he is being treated unless he is accompanied.

He arrived in August after smuggling himself illegally into Britain via Europe in the back of a lorry.

Navaneethan's lawyer says he is under constant supervision because there are fears he may try to take his own life after suffering weeks of torture, allegedly at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.

This is the first time Navaneethan has left the hospital grounds. He wants to tell his story and has been allowed to leave for a few hours by doctors to meet us at a nearby cafe.

Navaneethan speaks virtually no English and talks to us through a Tamil solicitor.

During the Sri Lankan civil war he says he was a driver for the separatist group the Tamil Tigers - but he insists he is no longer an activist.

After the end of the civil war he says he went to France but was deported back to Sri Lanka, where he was abducted one day on his way home from work.

The 33-year-old says he was picked up and tortured in May of this year - four years on from the supposed end of the civil war.

His story is typical of the claims of abuses which human rights groups say are continuing in Sri Lanka. 

He told me: "They came in front of me, stopped me and said 'I want to speak to you, come' then grabbed me from behind my head, grabbed my collar and pushed me into the van."

Navaneethan says he was taken to an army camp where he was held for 23 days.

He said: "I was questioned. They said 'you have been the driver of the vehicles belonging to the group (Tamil Tigers). You smuggled arms and hid them. Where are the bunkers with weapons?'."

He says he was slapped and punched, beaten with a rifle butt, given electric shocks, made to feel like he was drowning and repeatedly sexually abused.

"I was beaten but before that I was given electric shocks.  It was like two squares held onto my waist.  After that I was assaulted with a rifle butt.  My ear was pulled with pliers and I was stabbed with an army knife.

"The sexual thing ... three army personnel came one night.  I was kept the whole night. One after the other they came to me and they did it."

"I was mostly beaten with plastic pipes, long wooden poles and wires. They put a plastic bag over my head and put water inside.  I couldn't breathe at all.

"At that time I felt instead of going through all this torture I would rather die - my torture was that severe. 

"Like what happened to me the torture is on a massive scale and the outside world has no idea about these things."

Navaneethan - who is applying for permission to stay in Britain - returned to the hospital after spending a few hours with us.

Sky News raised his case with Dr Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to the UK.

He said: "People who came over here as economic refugees living off the British taxpayers' money who now should be deported naturally do not want to be deported, and they will come up with all sorts of conjecture of 'torture', because they have a compelling reason why they want to stay.

"There will always be a group of people who funded terrorism, who made terrorism a business , who will perpetuate a proxy propaganda war.  All these are usually unauthenticated, unverified and uncorroborated.  

"We have a formal process of investigation. It is a domestic process and that will continue because no-one condones any form of torture.

"But there are lots of spurious allegations and it is fundamentally important for a country post-conflict that we separate fact from fiction."

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Typhoon Survivors Expect Long Wait For Help

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Cebu

For hour after hour, driving into the heart of typhoon-stricken northern Cebu, it was the same picture.

Hundreds of families, picking through the remains of their destroyed homes, hoping to find some treasured keepsakes; and children lining the roadside, for mile after mile, pleading for water, food and money.

It has been four days since Typhoon Haiyan - or Yolanda as it is known in the Philippines - swept across the centre of the country, destroying homes and livelihoods in its path.

So far, in northern Cebu at least, very little aid has reached those who need it most.

Supplies of water and rice are trickling through from independent charities but as we drove north, the scene of destruction worsening the further we went, there was no evidence of any food convoys and no airstrips are operational in the area.

Thankfully there was no storm surge in northern Cebu, but the winds struck with a savagery which stunned residents well used to typhoons, believed to have been in the region of 250 miles per hour.

Stephen was born a month early during the storm

Bonifacio Reviero said: "We hid in the house with our grandchildren but we could hear the telephone and electricity poles snapping like twigs outside, and branches smashing into the roof. It lasted hours.

"When it was over, the roof was gone and the house was ringed by huge trees, which had crashed down but not on us. I don't know how we were so lucky."

One village lost 12 fishermen when four boats capsized in the storm.

In the hills, miles of banana trees have been uprooted or ripped in half. The coconut trees stand bare and broken. There will be no harvest here for a very long time.

More than 90% of the homes in northern Cebu, an area hundreds of miles square, have sustained considerable damage; many pancaked, storey on storey. 

No one expects help to come any time soon, hence the pleading with passing motorists for money, to buy new building materials as soon as possible. The remnants of their old walls and roofs are spread across the nearby fields.

The injured line the walls of the only medical facility in Bogo City, many of them young children.

Bonifacio Reviero sits outside what remains of his home

In one jam-packed ward of the tiny Severo Verallo Memorial District Hospital the very youngest patients lie four to a bed. Since Saturday the hospital has delivered 40 newborns.

Curled up around them on the beds are their hollow-eyed parents, who know they should be celebrating one of the happiest moments of their lives but are unable to amid the chaos and destruction outside; worries about injured relatives, and the knowledge for many that they have no home to take them to. 

Two-day-old Stephen's mother, Maria Janairo, who went into labour a month early during the storm, said it would be a very strange feeling when so many children in the town were celebrating their birthday together every year.

"On the one hand I will be happy that we survived for them to be born, but on the other it will be a haunting reminder of everything we lost."

:: To make a donation to the DEC Philippines Crisis Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk, call the 24-hour hotline on 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any high street bank or post office or send a cheque.

You can also donate £5 by texting the word SUPPORT to 70000.

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Typhoon Haiyan: China Pledges $100,000 Aid

China has risked further straining its fragile relations with the Philippines by donating $100,000 (£63,000) to the Typhoon Haiyan relief effort.

The donation is matched by $100,000 from the Chinese Red Cross - but is still dwarfed by the effort from other countries seeking to exert influence in South East Asia, including the US and Japan.

Diplomatic links between Beijing and Manila have suffered in recent years due to China's claims over the disputed South China Sea and a 2010 Hong Kong tour bus hostage crisis in the Filipino capital.

One of China's state-run newspapers has criticised the donation but comments on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, suggest public opinion may be against giving more.

The Global Times, known for its nationalistic and often hawkish editorial views, expressed concern about the impact on Beijing's international standing.

"China, as a responsible power, should participate in relief operations to assist a disaster-stricken neighbouring country, no matter whether it's friendly or not," the paper said in a commentary.

"China's international image is of vital importance to its interests. If it snubs Manila this time, China will suffer great losses."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China would consider more aid as the situation developed, but did not say why Beijing had offered less than other countries.

He said: "China has also suffered from the disaster, so we very much understand and sympathise with the current hardships that the Philippine people are facing."

The storm claimed the lives of at least seven people and caused $734m (£462m) in economic losses when the much-weakened storm swept through China's southern provinces.

Comments on Sina Weibo overwhelmingly opposed China giving aid to the Philippines.

A botched attempt to free tourists from a bus in 2010 strained relations

One user wrote: "For God's sake, give them nothing. We've given them enough in the past."

Lye Liang Fook of the East Asian Institute in Singapore said it was impossible to separate China's anger over territorial claims from the question of disaster relief.

He said: "Politically there is a lack of trust, and under the circumstances, the fact that China is willing to extend aid is quite significant. The two issues are linked to each other."

Joseph Cheng, a political science professor at Hong Kong's City University, said public sentiment would factor into China's decision.

He said: "I certainly think that relief and aid for natural disasters should not be affected by political relations. But the Chinese authorities are handicapped by domestic nationalist feelings as well.

"China should have used the opportunity to improve its image."

Super Typhoon Haiyan tore through the central Philippines on Friday and flattened the city of Tacloban, where officials fear up to 10,000 people could have died.

Officials fear the toll could rise as rescuers reach more isolated towns.

Overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, the Philippines has sought international assistance.

The US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington, carrying about 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, will arrive this week after setting sail from Hong Kong on Tuesday.

It has been joined by four other US Navy ships.

The United States is also providing $20m (£12.5m) in immediate aid, while the UK has committed £15m and sent a Royal Navy warship to the region.

Japan said it will give $10m (£6.3m) and send a small number of soldiers and medical personnel, while Australia has donated $9.6m (£6m).

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Typhoon Aid Appeal Amid Urgent Relief Effort

Aid agencies have issued a plea for donations to help the millions of people affected by the catastrophic Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Britain will contribute a total of £10m to the relief effort and send Royal Navy warship HMS Daring to provide humanitarian assistance.

Prime Minister David Cameron also said a RAF C-17 aircraft would be deployed, with equipment including forklift trucks, temporary shelters, water purification tablets and blankets on board.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said the scenes of devastation wrought by the typhoon were "shocking in their scale".

"We know that the survivors, especially vulnerable children and women, now face a grim and uncertain future," she said.

Many of those affected by the disaster need injuries treated

"Britain is determined to stand by the Philippines and we have now pledged a total of £10m to get 800,000 people the food."

The United States is giving £12m and sending marines and equipment to help, while Australia will contribute £6m.

Japan is sending a 25-member relief team of mostly medical staff, while even Vietnam - itself expected to be hit by the storm - has donated £63,000 and said it "stands by the Philippine people in this difficult situation".

The United Nations said relief teams were on the ground in some of the affected areas, helping some 660,000 displaced survivors.

Residents clear a road of a fallen electrics post in Daanbantayan

John Ging, from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said: "On this occasion we don't need very much assessment; we know precisely what the needs are when you look at the scale of the devastation."

He said the two main priorities are to feed survivors and to bury the thousands of dead - which he said was urgent in order to avoid outbreaks of "public health disasters."

Aid organisations warned they were being hampered by widespread devastation and Save the Children said it was helping survivors who were having to cope with the "worst possible conditions".

Lynette Lim of the charity said: "We are working round the clock to offer the basic life essentials to the 4.3 million people we estimate are affected.

"We are witnessing the complete devastation of a city. In Tacloban everything is flattened. Bodies litter the street, many, many of which are children. From what I saw, two out of every five bodies was that of a child.

"Children are particularly vulnerable in disasters. We fear for how many children have been washed away in floods, crushed under falling buildings and injured by flying debris. Many are separated from their families amid the devastation, and all are in desperate need of food, water and shelter."

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Typhoon Haiyan: New Storm On Way

Rescuers are struggling to get desperately needed aid to areas of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan - as a new storm approaches.

Aid workers are being held back by blocked roads and damaged airports as they try to deliver tents, food and medicines to the worst-affected areas.

Troops have been sent to the city of Tacloban to restore law and order after reports of looting, with Filipino President Benigno Aquino declaring a state of calamity and considering whether martial law is necessary.

Vehicles were left strewn amid the destruction in Tacloban (pic: Unicef)

Looters have reportedly broken into supermarkets, while a Red Cross aid convoy was raided. Consumer goods such as televisions and washing machines have also been stolen.

With at least 10,000 people thought to have been killed by the typhoon and two million affected, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the UK would contribute £10m to aid efforts.

Britain will also deploy Royal Navy warship HMS Daring to provide humanitarian assistance and RAF military transport aircraft to take equipment and supplies.

Children plead for help in typhoon-hit town Tabogon

In Tacloban, corpses hung from trees and were scattered in the streets. As others remained buried in flattened buildings, survivors were left pleading for food, water and medicine.

One UN official said he was told there had been a three-metre (10ft) water surge through the city.

A further 300 are confirmed dead and 2,000 missing on the neighbouring island of Samar.

A woman mourns next to the body of her husband and others

Water has been cut off in many areas, making the relief effort more difficult.

Threatening to further hamper relief efforts is a new storm approaching the southern and central Philippines.

Government weather forecasters said the tropical depression could bring fresh floods to typhoon-affected areas.

The depression is expected to hit land on the southern island of Mindanao late Tuesday and then move across the central islands of Bohol, Cebu, Negros and Panay, which all suffered typhoon damage, forecaster Connie Dadivas said.

Survivors make their way through the rubble of destroyed buildings

It could bring "moderate to heavy" rains, or about five to 15 millimetres (0.2 to 0.6 inches) per hour, he said.

Sky's Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay, in Manila, said: "The relief operation is only just getting going, it's fairly piecemeal at the moment.

A displaced child and her mother in an evacuation centre (pic: Unicef)

"They really don't have the volume of aircraft they need to either get aircraft in or people out in sufficient quantities to try and control what has become, day-by-day, a more difficult situation."

At least six people have also been killed in Vietnam after the typhoon made landfall near the Chinese border.

Some 600,000 people were evacuated from at-risk areas in the north of the country before Haiyan - downgraded to a weaker Category One storm - battered the coast with 98mph (157kmph) winds.

Philippine Army members board a US plane on the way to help survivors

All schools in capital Hanoi were closed on Monday and extra police were dispatched to redirect traffic in flood-prone areas.

At least two million people are said to have been directly affected by the typhoon's path and the death toll is expected to rise further as rescuers reach cut-off areas.

"This area has been totally ravaged", said Sebastien Sujobert, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tacloban.

The winds felled trees and homes across swathes of the country

"Many lives were lost, a huge number of people are missing, and basic services such as drinking water and electricity have been cut off."

Haiyan hit the east coast of the Philippines on Friday and smashed through its central islands, with winds of 147mph (235 kmph) and a storm surge of 20ft (six metres).

Video from Eastern Samar province's Guiuan township - the first area where the typhoon made landfall - also showed a trail of devastation. Many houses were flattened and roads were strewn with debris and uprooted trees. 

Survivors now face the prospect of rebuilding their lives

Witnesses reported seeing looting and violence, with President Aquino admitting it was a major concern.

Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala told AFP news agency that 100 soldiers had been sent to help police restore law and order in Tacloban.

The United Nations said it was sending supplies but access to the worst-hit areas was a challenge.

Looters carry away supplies from a shop

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has directed the military's Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support search-and-rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies.

The European Commission has released €3m (£2.5m) in emergency funds, while the UK is providing £6m in aid and Prime Minister David Cameron has telephoned President Aquino to offer his support.

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Typhoon Survivors Hunt For Food 'Like Zombies'

Survivors of the super typhoon that has devastated several islands in the Philippines have begun scavenging for food and looting shops in order to stay alive, witnesses say.

Shopping centres and grocery stores in hard-hit Tacloban have reportedly been stripped of goods as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water are hampered by severed roads and communications.

"Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families," high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, said as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

"People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk. I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger."

Witnesses described how survivors are forming long queues at aid stations, waiting desperately for handouts of rice and water.

"Zombie-like" survivors trudge along roads thick with mud

Some sit and stare, covering their faces with rags to keep out the smell of the dead.

One woman, eight months pregnant, described through tears how her 11 family members vanished in the storm, including two daughters.

"I can't think right now. I am overwhelmed," she said.

During a visit to Tacloban, President Benigno Aquino acknowledged that looting had emerged as a major concern after only 20 out of 390 of the city's police officers turned up for work following the typhoon.

"So we will send about 300 police and soldiers to take their place and bring back peace and order," he said.

Looters take supplies from a shop which has had the gate broken open

"Tonight, an armoured vehicle will arrive and our armed forces will display the strength of the state to put a stop to this looting."

Aid agencies have warned that many of the 480,000 people whose homes have been destroyed by the bludgeoning force of the cyclone face a desperate battle to survive.

"Everything is gone. Our house is like a skeleton and we are running out of food and water. We are looking for food everywhere," said Jenny Chu, a medical student in Leyte.

"Even the delivery vans were looted. People are walking like zombies looking for food. It's like a movie."

Nancy Chang, who was in Tacloblan City on a business trip from China and walked three hours through mud and debris for a military-led evacuation, said: "It's like the end of the world."

Two men drag a corpse towards rescuers

Relief efforts are being hampered by the complete destruction of the airport, where seawaters shattered the glass of the airport tower, levelled the terminal and overturned vehicles.

Military aircraft and helicopters, which are in limited supply in the Philippines, are the only way in and out of the city.

Amid the destruction, extraordinary stories of survival are starting to emerge.

Lieutenant Colonel Fermin Carangan of the Philippine Air Force said he and 41 officers were sheltering in their airport office when "suddenly the sea water and the waves destroyed the walls and I saw my men being swept by waters one by one".

He was swept away from the building and clung to a coconut tree with a seven-year-old boy.

Hundreds of people queue for food at a Tacloban airport aid centre

"In the next five hours we were in the sea buffeted by wind and strong rain. I kept on talking to the boy and giving him a pep talk because the boy was telling me he was tired and he wanted to sleep."

He finally saw land and swam with the boy to a beach strewn with dead bodies.

He said: "I think the boy saved my life because I found strength so that he can survive."

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

Aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines are stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and another refugee crisis due to conflict in southern Zamboanga province.

The US embassy in Manila has pledged $100,000 towards relief supplies and the Australian government gave A$390,500 but some expressed anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts. 

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Super Typhoon Haiyan: '10,000 Could Be Dead'

At least 10,000 people are thought to have been killed in the Philippine city of Tacloban by Typhoon Haiyan, officials believe.

A further 300 are confirmed dead with 2,000 missing in the neighbouring island of Samar.

Up to 4.3 million people are said to have been directly affected by the typhoon's path and the death toll is expected to rise further as rescuers reach cut-off areas.

If the death toll estimate by government officials is confirmed, it would be the deadliest natural catastrophe on record in the Philippines.

Coffins are left on a street

Up to 70-80% of homes have been destroyed in Tacloban and other areas in the typhoon's path, according to Justin Morgan of Oxfam.

Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas said: "From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometre inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami.

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

Most of the dead are understood to have drowned or were crushed by collapsed buildings. Many corpses hung on tree branches, buildings and in the roads.

A fishing boat was picked up and deposited atop a sea of housing debris

"On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street," said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila.

"They were covered with just anything - tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboards," she said. Asked how many, she said, "Well over 100 where we passed."

But the destruction extended well beyond Tacloban, a city of 200,000. Officials are yet to make contact with Guiuan, a town of 40,000 that was first hit by the typhoon.

A woman mourns next to the dead body of her husband and other corpses

Baco, a city of 35,000 people in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80% under water, the UN said.

The Philippines has limited resources on its own to deal with a disaster of this magnitude, say experts.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has directed the military's Pacific Command to deploy ships and aircraft to support search-and-rescue operations and airlift emergency supplies.

A boy carries away supplies he has collected from rescue workers

But the command is headquartered in Hawaii, with one carrier group currently in port in Hong Kong, so it is thought it will be some days before it reaches the affected area.

The European Commission has released 3m euros ($4m; £2.5m) in emergency funds and is sending a team of humanitarian experts.

The UK is providing £6m in emergency humanitarian aid. A team of four experts has already been sent to the country.

Residents beside a road littered with debris

Prime Minister David Cameron telephoned Philippine president Benigno Aquino III to offer the UK's full support and thoughts.

Haiyan was one of the strongest tropical storms ever to have made landfall, lashing the Philippines with wind gusts of 170mph (275kph) and whipping up a storm surge which swallowed coastal towns and villages.

Although the storm weakened to a category one hurricane when it hit northern Vietnam, with 75mph (120kmph) winds, there are fears that many other people could be affected.

A pregnant woman cooks a meal inside a building overlooking Tacloban

Nearly a million people were evacuated from central provinces before the path of Haiyan turned further north.

The typhoon passed very close to the Chinese island of Hainan, where a further 130,000 people were relocated.

Six people died during Vietnamese evacuations and six are missing off China after authorities lost contact with their cargo boat.

A map showing the direction of Typhoon Haiyan

About 100,000 Britons visit Vietnam every year and the Foreign Office is advising travellers to follow advice from local authorities as well as having teams on standby.

Tacloban, a city of 220,000 people south of Manila, bore the brunt of Haiyan in the Philippines. Bodies have been seen floating in roads covered with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes.

"The dead are on the streets, they are in their houses, they are under the debris, they are everywhere," said Tecson John Lim, a Tacloban city administrator.

Among those feared dead is an Australian ex-priest Kevin Lee, who moved to the Philippines after blowing the whistle on abuse in the Catholic Church in his home country, it has been reported.

The previous deadliest disaster to hit the Philippines was in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake killed between 5,000 and 8,000 people.

12.15 | 0 komentar | Read More

Super Typhoon Haiyan: Thousands Feared Dead

Thousands of people are feared to have been killed in the areas of the Philippines hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan.

The country's Red Cross says it has been told there are 1,000 dead in Tacloban and 200 in Samar alone.

A Red Cross spokesman said: "We now fear that thousands will have lost their lives."

Flooded fields and wrecked villages in Iloilo Province

The scale of devastation led one UN disaster official to compare the destruction to that caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The official death toll had reached 138 by 1pm on Saturday (UK time) but there are fears the eventual death toll will be "massive" after the tropical cyclone smashed through the country with winds gusting up to 170mph.

And there are growing fears for Vietnam which is now in the path of what has been called one of the most powerful recorded cyclones in history.

A truck was picked up by the high winds and slammed against a tree

Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of a United Nations disaster assessment coordination team, said: "This is destruction on a massive scale.

"The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami."

Around 220,000 people died as a result of that disaster.

Typhoon Haiyan pictured from International Space Station

Gwendolyn Pang, Philippine Red Cross secretary general said: "An estimated more than 1,000 bodies were seen floating in Tacloban. In Samar, about 200 deaths. Validation is ongoing."

When asked how many had died in just the coastal town of Palo and its surrounding area, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said: "I think hundreds. Palo, Ormoc, Burauen... Carigara, they all looked the same."

Scores of towns and villages are thought to have been inundated with water after storm surges flooded low-lying areas, drowning many in their path.

A mother weeps beside the dead body of her son

TV pictures showed cars, trees and rubble from houses strewn across streets after they were picked up by giant waves and carried inland.

"Almost all houses were destroyed, many are totally damaged. Only a few are left standing," said Major Rey Balido, a spokesman for the national disaster agency.

About a million people evacuated because they were living in the typhoon's path have been returning to find out what is left of their houses.

Children play among downed power lines

Many of those who died are thought to have left shelters in an urgent bid to rescue valuables from their homes, unaware of the giant waves flooding through coastal towns.

Hundreds of thousands are thought to have been left homeless.

British team of humanitarian experts is due to fly out to the Philippines to help the UK Government decide what aid to send.

Residents carry the body of a loved one

An appeal launched by the British Red Cross has already raised more than £100,000. US Secretary of State John Kerry said that America stood "ready to help".

Many of the most heavily damaged areas are still to be contacted because power and telephone lines are down, making the work of providing relief all the more difficult.

Captain John Andrews, a Philippines aviation chief, said he had spoken to colleagues by radio who had told him there were "100-plus dead lying on the streets" in Tacloban.

Soldiers walk outside of Tacloban's shattered airport terminal

Tacloban is the capital of Leyte, a large island of about two million people that suffered a direct hit from Haiyan on Friday morning when the storm was at its strongest.

Leyte Island, about 350 miles south of the capital Manila, is one of six islands that was in the path of the super typhoon's centre.

An increasing problem for the authorities now is looting, with many of the survivors desperate to get hold of supplies from the shattered shops.

Many children became separated from their parents and were left in tears

Thousands of police and army personnel are being flown into the affected areas to start relief operations and to uphold law and order.

At one point the super typhoon had been stronger than it was when it hit land, with winds gusting up to 235mph making it among the most powerful ever.

Meteorologists said that it had slowed to 100mph after passing over the Philippines but is still expected to be of typhoon force as it sweeps across the South China Sea toward Vietnam.

A map showing the path of the typhoon and affected islands

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese have been moved away from coastal areas as authorities prepared for Haiyan to make landfall around 10am Sunday. Millions are thought to be living in its path.

12.14 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran Nuclear Talks Conclude Without A Deal

Intense negotiations between world powers on Iran's nuclear future have ended without a hoped-for deal - but talks will resume in less than two weeks.

International foreign ministers and diplomats from six world powers and Iran spent three days in Geneva trying to broker a deal on limiting Iranian atomic programmes that could be used for weapons, in exchange for lifting some sanctions on the country.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said "a lot of concrete progress has been made but differences remain" with Tehran.

Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif

She added: "We're not going into the details of our discussions but I pay tribute to all the ministers, including (French Foreign Minister] Laurent Fabius' attempt to try and help support this process."

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that despite the failure to reach agreement the talks had been "very productive".

"I think we are all on the same wavelength and that is important and that gives us the impetus to go forward when we meet again," he said.

US secretary of state John Kerry said the negotiations were "serious" and "conducted with mutual respect", and he was confident the group's "goal" could soon be achieved.

Iranian journalists waiting for the final news conference

"There is no question in my mind that we are closer now as we leave Geneva that we were when we came and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks we can in fact secure our goal," he said.

The talks are reported to have stalled over France's request that Iran reduce its stockpiles of 20% uranium by oxidising it, putting it further away from being weapons grade material but still usable in a fuel programme.

Tehran has always insisted its programme is for energy and other civil purposes, not military.

At a news conference, Mr Fabius said: "From the start, France wanted an agreement to the important question of Iran's nuclear programme.

"The Geneva meeting allowed us to advance, but we were not able to conclude because there are still some questions to be addressed."

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius arrives for a meeting

Optimism about a potential breakthrough in the decade-long dispute were raised when senior politicians - including Mr Kerry and UK foreign secretary William Hague - joined the talks.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and a Chinese deputy foreign minister also flew in to take part.

Mr Fabius had earlier told France Inter radio that Paris could not accept a "fool's game".

His pointed remarks hinted at a rift within the Western camp. A Western diplomat close to the negotiations accused the French of trying to upstage the other powers.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov also attended the talks

"The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively together for months on this proposal, and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Sky's Foreign Affairs Editor Tim Marshall, in Geneva, said: "I really think they were close. The Iranians were slightly less disappointed but I think Laurent Fabius is going to take some heat from this.

"The US and Britain have led the toughest line against the Iranians in the last five years but France has been as tough as anyone, if not tougher."

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said the atmosphere at the talks was "completely different" from a few months ago.

"We must continue to apply ourselves in the coming weeks, building on the progress that has been made," he said.

The six world powers and Iran agreed to resume talks on November 20 to try to clinch a deal.

12.14 | 0 komentar | Read More