Tacloban, Philippines -- A mother mourns the deaths of children who slipped from her grasp. A father says he's contemplated suicide. A family prepares to rebuild.
A week after Typhoon
Haiyan tore through the Philippines, the adrenaline-fueled response to
the storm and its aftermath have faded from the streets of Tacloban.
Now, the grim realities of daily life have taken its place.
Juvelyn Taniega is trying
to keep busy. She's collected old dishes and is cleaning them up,
crouching on the ground near the spot where her home once stood and the
place where she last saw her husband and six children alive.
She's found the bodies of three of her children, but three of them are still missing. In days, she said, no one has come to help.
"My children are decomposing," she said.
In other parts of the
storm-ravaged city, help has arrived. Trucks carry food. Crews clean up
debris. Workers line up bodies to be identified by families who've been
searching for their loved ones.
Humanitarian workers and
military troops from around the world have converged on the Eastern
Philippines, racing against time to rescue and feed those devastated by
the storm.
The horror is everywhere
thanks to what was Super Typhoon Haiyan when it came ashore a week ago
ago, packing winds 3.5 times as strong as Hurricane Katrina, pushing in a
wall of water 15 feet high and washing away towns on many islands.
The official nationwide
death toll from the typhoon had increased to 2,360 by Friday morning.
Other reports suggested the toll could be far higher, with thousands
feared dead in Tacloban alone.
The deadly storm left more than 3,850 injured and at least 77 people reported missing across the Philippines, officials said.
Reaching all the victims
and assisting the survivors -- including more than 2 million people in
need of food, according to the Philippines government -- are both
priorities now.
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