Damaged roads hamper relief after typhoon leaves Philippines 'ravaged' Rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged towns and villages in the central Philippines on Monday as they tried to deliver aid to survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed an estimated 10,000 people and displaced more than 600,000. The United Nations said some survivors had no food, water or medicine. Relief operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage, it said. President Benigno Aquino, facing one of the biggest challenges of his three-year rule, deployed soldiers to the devastated city of Tacloban to quell looting and said he might impose martial law or a state of emergency to ensure security. Super Typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 per cent of structures in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday. After weakening, the storm headed west toward Vietnam where it made landfall early Monday. Huge waves from one of the strongest storms ever recorded swept away coastal villages. Some officials likened the destruction to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. 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," said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas. I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific. The Philippines government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of the number of deaths from the storm, whose sustained winds reached 314 kilometres an hour. In Leyte province, police chief superintendent Elmer Soria, quoting local officials, said the estimated death toll so far was 10,000. That could climb once rescuers reach remote villages along the coast. Nearly 620,000 people were displaced and 91/2 million "affected" across nine regions, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement. Local officials observed one mass grave of between 300 to 500 bodies in one area of Tacloban alone. Across Tacloban, men, women and children walked carefully over splintered remains of wooden houses, searching for missing loved ones and belongings. Not one building seems to have escaped damage in the coastal city of 220,000 people, about 580 kilometres southeast of Manila. Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes. The city and nearby villages were flooded, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes. Survivors queued in lines, waiting for handouts of rice and water. Some sat and stared, covering their faces with rags to keep out the smell of the dead from one of the worst disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation. One woman, eight months pregnant, described through tears how her 11 family members had vanished, including two daughters. "I can't think right now," she said. I am overwhelmed. About 90 U.S. Marines and sailors headed to the Philippines in a first wave of promised military assistance for relief efforts, U.S. officials said. President Barack Obama said the United States was ready to provide additional aid. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, said it was rushing emergency supplies to the Philippines, as were other international aid agencies. Most of the storm deaths appeared to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami. Tacloban lies in a cove where the seawater narrows, making it susceptible to storm surges. Mr. Aquino said the government had deployed 300 soldiers and police to restore order in Tacloban. Mobs attacked trucks loaded with food, tents and water on a bridge in Leyte, said Philippines Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon. Mr. Aquino has shown exasperation at conflicting reports on damage and deaths. One TV network quoted him as telling the head of the disaster agency that he was running out of patience. "How can you beat that typhoon?" said defence chief Voltaire Gazmin, when asked whether the government had been ill-prepared. It's the strongest on Earth. We've done everything we can, we had lots of preparation. It's a lesson for us.