We must work fast or the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan will grow Residents pass some of he devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban city, Leyte province, in central Philippines. THE storm reached Tacloban at 5.30am. The strong winds and heavy rains seemed manageable at first, but after an hour of constant pounding, I knew something was about to give way. One after the other, all four sides of the building I was in (part of the local Department of Education compound) were hit. After the glass windows shattered on one side, all six staff from Save the Children, including myself, evacuated to the next room and then the next, until we found ourselves in our final safe room. At the height of the storm's fury, the only thing I could see was a tree about to crash through the window - at the same time we were hoping the ceiling would not fall on us. As the storm surged around us, we continued to text information and take media interviews, but then mobile reception was cut. That is what it feels like to be cut off from the rest of the world. Despite my real fear of what would happen to us, my thoughts returned to the children in less sturdy buildings than the one I found myself in: what more was in store for them with the relentless pounding of rain, zinc roofs blowing in the sky and branches swept all around them? It wouldn't be long before I found out. Within 24 hours, I had met 10-year-old Rafael, whose mother and siblings had gone to the evacuation centre, while he stayed with his father to protect the house. Rafael's story is what I feared for the thousands of children in the storm's path. When we went out of the house, my father was hit by a collapsed wall. There was blood everywhere. I tried to wake him up but he wasn't moving any more," Rafael told me. The water got even higher and I wanted to carry my father with the tide but I thought we would both die. I was scared and I was crying. I swam and swam and every time I was tired I would cling to a log. Then I would swim again. It was a miracle I survived. While immensely grateful that Rafael did survive and even made it to the evacuation centre where he was reunited with his mother and siblings, the climbing death toll that is now being estimated at 10,000 people makes me fear for the thousands of children and families who have yet to be accounted for. The devastation I witnessed even from the first moments, peering out the window from our safe room after the storm passed, is on a scale I have never witnessed. The area around us looked completely flattened. It is like the tornadoes that struck Oklahoma earlier this year, but with the added element of metre-high floodwaters. It was clear that the storm we'd just lived through had wreaked death, damage and destruction. Despite our relief that the storm had passed us, it was hard to feel any real respite from the immense stress this disaster had brought the Philippines: after slamming Tacloban, the storm was headed straight to Bohol, where hundreds of thousands of children have been living in temporary shelters, tents and tarpaulins following last month's earthquake. For a storm of this magnitude to hit an area and population as vulnerable as those living in Bohol surpassed even my fears from the height of the storm - how scared these children would be and how much help they and their families would need to recover. WITH teams already on the ground assessing needs, Save the Children will be working round the clock to reach the worst-affected children and their families. Already we know that 3.9 million children live in the areas affected by Typhoon Haiyan. Emergency assistance is urgently needed to prevent a deterioration of their health and nutrition and to ensure their safety - and already the Australian Government has pledged close to $400,000 in emergency relief to assist families affected by the disaster, with funds going to much-needed sleeping mats, blankets, mosquito nets, water containers and general health kits. The need for aid could not be more urgent: in the absence of shelter, food, emergency healthcare, clean water and sanitation, these children's lives could quickly become at risk. Rafael's words to me tell the story better than I ever could: "We are getting sick, my siblings are always coughing because it is very cold and we don't have any dry clothes at the moment. We don't have anything with us. Lynette Lim is an aid worker with Save the Children. Emergency aid is desperately needed. To donate to Save the Children's relief efforts visit savethechildren.org.au/typhoon or call 1800 76 00 11.