Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes: "Progress is being made" 
 
 The relief operation in the central Philippines to help those affected by Typhoon Haiyan is making progress following the arrival of a US aircraft carrier and its escort of two cruisers. 
 
 More victims are receiving help but a BBC correspondent at the scene says there is still no large-scale food distribution taking place. 
 
 The first mass burials have been carried out in Tacloban. 
 
 The confirmed death toll, more than 2,300, is expected to continue rising. 
 
 More than 11 million people have been affected by the typhoon, according to the UN. 
 
 Unprecedented 
 
 The top US commander in the Philippines told the BBC that US military support would be on an unprecedented scale. 
 
 The USS George Washington, carrying 5,000 crew and moored off the east of Samar island, will expand search-and-rescue operations and provide a platform for helicopters to move supplies, the White House said. 
 
 Two US destroyers are already in the Philippines and other US vessels are expected to arrive in about a week, the US Navy said. 
 
 Pallets loaded with food and water have been taken from the aircraft carrier to Tacloban, the capital of badly hit Leyte province, and Guiuan, which was also devastated by the typhoon, on Samar's east coast. 
 
 Image caption The big international aid operation is being given a further boost by the arrival of a US aircraft carrier 
 
 Image caption Survivors have been forming long queues in the worst hit areas to collect food and water 
 
 Image caption Aid officials are trying to gain a more accurate picture of the typhoon damage from the air 
 
 Image caption Many buildings were flattened by the storm and others heavily damaged including this church in Tacloban 
 
 US Marine Brigadier General Paul Kennedy told BBC Radio 5 live that the US aid effort was being stepped up to a level that has "probably never been applied" to a humanitarian crisis. 
 
 The presence of the USS George Washington is expected to triple the number of available helicopters, which can also deliver hundreds of thousands of gallons of water every day. 
 
 Food, water and medical help are beginning to reach residents of Tacloban as soldiers clear roads blocked by debris. 
 
 But thousands of people continued to line up at the city's airport on Thursday to escape the difficult conditions. 
 
 Aid at a glance Asian Development Bank: $500m (£312m) emergency loans and $23m in grants Australia: A$30m ($28m, £17m) package, including aircraft, medical staff, shelter materials, water containers and hygiene kits China: 10m yuan ($1.6m; £1m) in relief goods plus $200,000 (£120,000) from government and Red Cross European Commission: $11m (£6.8m) Indonesia: Logistical aid including aircraft, food, generators and medicine Japan: $10m (£6.2m), including tents and blankets. Pledged up to 1,000 soldiers, 25-person medical team already sent South Korea: $5m (£3.1m) plus a 40-strong medical team UAE: $10m (£6.2m) in humanitarian aid UK: $32m (£20m) aid package, sending aircraft carrier, destroyer and large transport aircraft US: $20m (£12.4m) in humanitarian aid, 300 military personnel, aircraft carrier and other ships, military aircraft plus logistics support Donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) In pictures: Aid ramps up Typhoon Haiyan: Aid in numbers Q&A: Haiyan disaster management 
 
 Many of the dozens of bodies which have been lying in the open since Haiyan struck are now being cleared from the streets and buried. 
 
 The first of several hundred bodies were interred in a mass grave in Tacloban after samples were taken to enable identification, the authorities told AP. 
 
 Philippine Health Minister Enrique Ona told the BBC that international criticism of the government's relief efforts was "unkind". 
 
 He said the final death toll was likely to be "significantly lower" than an early estimate of 10,000, but warned that it was unlikely all victims would be identified. 
 
 Looting 
 
 The full extent of what is needed to help survivors has yet to emerge as aid workers struggle to reach more isolated areas. 
 
 Guiuan, a town of 45,000, was heavily damaged by the typhoon. French aid charity MSF described the situation there as bleak. 
 
 But the BBC's Andrew Harding, reporting from near Guiuan, says after earlier problems with looting, some supplies are now getting in. 
 
 Other countries have also pledged help in the shape of financial aid, relief supplies or emergency teams. 
 
 The UK government is sending the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, more than £20m ($32m) in aid, a team of medical experts and an RAF transport aircraft. 
 
 China's latest pledge of $1.6m still looks pointedly small besides its previous aid packages to other nations - even to Japan, with whom it is also squabbling over territory China's aid controversy 
 
 Japan is also preparing to send up to 1,000 troops as well as naval vessels and aircraft, Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said. 
 
 China - which is engaged in a territorial dispute with the Philippines - is sending 10m yuan ($1.6m; £1m) in relief goods. 
 
 Its initial pledge of $200,000 (£120,000) from the government and Chinese Red Cross combined drew criticism in US media, but was also condemned by some Chinese internet users as excessive. 
 
 Unprecedented logistics 
 
 Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded on land, hit the Philippines last Friday. 
 
 Tacloban's airport was left in ruins by the storm, but in recent days US military planes have been arriving with World Food Programme supplies. A French-Belgian field hospital has also been set up. 
 
 Manila sent troops to Tacloban to keep law and order, but correspondents say there is a growing sense of panic. 
 
 In some areas survivors have resorted to digging up water pipes and extracting fuel from reservoirs at petrol stations. 
 
 Health experts have warned that the worst-affected areas are entering a peak danger period for the spread of infectious diseases. ||||| Posted at 11/12/2013 1:25 PM | Updated as of 11/12/2013 10:07 PM 
 
 TACLOBAN, Philippines - Hung outside a shattered church in the Philippine coastal city of Tacloban, on a road flanked with uncollected corpses and canyons of debris, is a handwritten sign. 
 
 It read, "We need help!" 
 
 Relief supplies are pouring into Tacloban three days after Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, turned this once-vibrant port city of 220,000 into a corpse-choked wasteland. 
 
 Tacloban city administrator Tecson Juan Lim says the death toll in this city alone "could go up to 10,000." 
 
 At least a dozen U.S. and Philippines military cargo planes arrived on Monday, with the Philippine air force saying it had flown in about 60,000 kg (66 tons) of relief supplies since Saturday. But the demand is huge and the supplies aren't reaching those who need it most. 
 
 "People are roaming around the city, looking for food and water," said Christopher Pedrosa, a government aid worker. 
 
 Aid trucks from the airport struggle to enter the city because of the stream of people and vehicles leaving it. On motorbikes, trucks or by foot, people clog the road to the airport, clutching scarves to their faces to blot out the dust and stench of bodies. 
 
 Hundreds have already left on cargo planes to the capital, Manila, or the second-biggest city of Cebu, with many more sleeping rough overnight at the wrecked airport in the hope of boarding flights in the coming days. 
 
 Reuters journalists traveled on a government aid truck which took five hours to pick up 600 bags of rice, tinned goods and milk from the airport and take it to a distribution point at City Hall. Thousands more bags were left at the airport because the truck wasn't big enough, said officials. 
 
 Pedrosa, the government aid worker, said security concerns prevented supplies from being handed out after dark. 
 
 "There might be a stampede," he said. 
 
 The aid truck was guarded by soldiers toting assault rifles. "It's risky," said Jewel Ray Marcia, a Philippine army lieutenant who led the unit. 
 
 "People are angry. They are going out of their minds." 
 
 "NOTHING LEFT TO LOOT" 
 
 The official slogan of Tacloban is "A City of Progress, Beauty and Love". But Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda, has turned that on its head, as desperation and anger grow. Residents wait with increasing impatience for a trickle of aid to become a torrent. 
 
 Earlier on Monday, said Pedrosa, soldiers fired warning shots into the air to stop people stealing fuel from a petrol station. 
 
 A heavier presence of soldiers and police on the debris-choked streets has stopped most looting, at least for now. 
 
 People were still emptying one warehouse of rice and loading it onto carts and motorcycles. No police or soldiers stopped them. 
 
 A handwritten sign pinned to a makeshift police checkpoint near a looted department store warned of an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. Reuters was unable to confirm whether the curfew was observed or enforced. 
 
 Also cleared out is a bottling factory for beer and soft drinks. In some areas, Coca-Cola was handed out free while drinking water was impossible to find. Officials were warning residents not to drink water from wells, which were likely polluted. 
 
 But there is another reason the looting had abated. 
 
 "There is nothing left to loot," said Pedrosa. 
 
 "THERE IS NOTHING HERE" 
 
 Officials attribute the high death toll to the many people who stayed behind to protect their property and were swept away in a storm surge of water and lacerating debris. 
 
 One of them was Marivel Saraza, 39, who moved her six children further inland before Haiyan struck, but stayed behind to look after her home only a stone's throw from the sea. 
 
 She ended up battling through chest-high water to reach higher ground, while the storm surge destroyed her two-story concrete home. 
 
 "My house just dissolved in the water," she said. 
 
 Saraza now struggles to feed her children. The government gave her 2 kg (4.4 lb) of rice and a single can of sardines - barely enough for one family meal - so her husband was foraging for fruit further inland. But trees have been combed flat by the force of the wind and rice fields inundated with salt water. 
 
 Haiyan struck with a force strong enough to drown hundreds of people in a storm surge and send cars and shipping containers tumbling through neighborhoods. All that's left of the main airport building is a carcass of twisted metal. 
 
 The sea has yet to retreat from some neighborhoods and the streets are flooded. The bay is littered with half-submerged cars. 
 
 Some people are making shelters from what the water has left of their broken homes. Others, unable to find any flat ground amid the ruins, sleep on sodden mattresses on their roofs. Some 5,000 people sheltered in a stadium. 
 
 The streets empty at night, the ruins lit here and there by cooking fires, or scoped by the powerful lights of passing army trucks. 
 
 Rusty Lacambra, 42, is joining the exodus along with his wife, two sons and niece. On Monday night he hitched a lift in an army truck bound for the airport to wait with hundreds of others hoping for a free flight on a cargo plane to Manila. 
 
 "My house is destroyed," he said. "Even if you have money there is no food to buy. There is nothing here." ||||| Major relief packages have continued to pour into the typhoon-devastated city of Tacloban – from food aid to medicine and search-and-rescue teams – on the second day of a ramped-up effort by the Philippines government to reach those hardest hit by the super storm that many fear has killed more than 10,000 people. 
 
 The aid comes amid heightened insecurity and tension in the city, where reports of gunshots, stabbings and ambushes have caused many residents and aid workers to fear for their lives. 
 
 Local and American military C-130 planes were flying in with supplies on Thursday, while the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier that can accommodate the landing of helicopters, was expected to arrive off the coast. 
 
 An American medical ship has been ordered but would not arrive for another few weeks. British digger maker JCB announced it would send heavy machinery and generators to help clear up the debris that still lines the streets. 
 
 Despite the arrival of aid and a concerted effort by the military to restore order to the town, thousands of stricken residents still crammed the crumbling airport desperate for a way out of the city that has borne the brunt of the storm and its aftermath. 
 
 On Wednesday night the Tacloban mayor, Alfred Romualdez, led a mass burial in a graveyard just outside the city. Officials said every effort had been made to ensure those buried could be identified in the weeks to come. 
 
 The official death toll of 2,357 is a considerably lower figure than that estimated by aid workers, who say the lack of information coming from various areas – some 29 municipalities in all are affected – could mean that the devastation is far greater than yet realised. Most casualties seem to have been around the islands of Samar and Leyte, where the storm first made landfall at 195mph on Friday morning, with accompanying sea surges of up to 20ft. 
 
 The resulting damage in the region – a coastal flatland that has seen whole villages blown apart by the storm's heavy winds and rain – has created a state of pandemonium in Tacloban, where survivors have had to loot shops and malls for water, while others have resorted to scavenging for food among the bloated bodies of the dead. 
 
 On Wednesday stories of heightened violence and tension circulated around the city as eight were killed after stampeding a rice warehouse looking for food. A Philippine Red Cross convoy was allegedly hijacked by armed men who were later shot dead by police, and a 13-year-old boy was knifed in the neck and stomach by unknown men, AFP reported. There were unverified reports that prisoners from the local jail, who had successfully broken out of their cells after the storm, were ambushing people carrying supplies across San Juanico bridge, which connects Tacloban with Samar island. 
 
 A Facebook status warning of traffickers posing as relief workers and targeting women and children circulated on Thursday but the Guardian was not able to verify the report. Officials urged people to stay calm and not believe everything they heard. "There have been so many reports of looting and rape which have turned out not to be correct," Ricky Caradang, a spokesman for President Benigno Aquino III, told the local ABS-CBN TV channel. 
 
 A nighttime curfew has been in place since Monday and in a televised report on Wednesday the BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes said Tacloban had turned into a "war zone". Footage showed tanks rolling through the centre of the devastated town and soldiers crouching behind walls with automatic rifles. Just what the threat was to the city had not been made clear, he said. 
 
 Some aid agencies, fearing for the safety of their employees, have ordered teams to evacuate. Plan International has withdrawn all 15 of its employees – normally permanently based in Tacloban – until security is restored in the city, according to spokesman Ian Wishart. The fact that many aid workers had arrived in Tacloban but little aid had yet been distributed was creating a security concern, one aid worker told the Guardian. A memo was circulating among relief workers advising them not to move around in Tacloban as some UN staff had already been pulled out for security reasons. 
 
 But officials have pointed to an increased presence of police and military, and the arrival of aid, as a turning point for the ravaged city. 
 
 Carandang said 26 of 138 barangays (neighbourhoods) in Tacloban had received aid, with many of the roads previously blocked by fallen trees and debris now cleared. 
 
 Oxfam has sent enough emergency water supplies for 20,000 families in Tacloban on a first-run delivery of effort, although the charity added that delivery was dependent on a stable security situation in the town itself. 
 
 Plans are to provide half a million people affected by the super storm with emergency shelter, water and construction materials to rebuild their homes and boats. The World Food Programme successfully delivered nearly 25 tonnes of high-energy biscuits on Wednesday and another 10 tonnes were on their way, the UN body said. 
 
 Much of the devastation wrought by Haiyan occurred in the Philippines' agricultural belt, with the majority of residents in Leyte and Samar working on farms or as fishermen. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption “An enormous four-metre storm surge swept into the coast, crushed all of these buildings”, reports Rupert Wingfield-Hayes 
 
 The authorities in the Philippines are struggling to bring relief to some of the areas worst affected by Typhoon Haiyan, one of the deadliest storms ever to hit the country. 
 
 Up to 10,000 are said to have died in Tacloban city and hundreds elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands are displaced. 
 
 The typhoon flattened homes, schools and an airport in Tacloban. 
 
 Relief workers are yet to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm. 
 
 In many areas there is no clean water, no electricity and very little food. 
 
 Thousands of troops have been deployed to the disaster zones and military cargo planes are flying in supplies. However, rescuers are hampered by debris and damaged roads. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jenny Dela Cruz has lost 11 members of her family including her two-year-old daughter, reports Jon Donnison 
 
 Pope Francis pleaded for aid for the victims in the mostly Catholic country, saying: "Sadly, there are many, many victims and the damage is huge. Let's try to provide concrete help." 
 
 US President Barack Obama issued a message saying he was "deeply saddened by the loss of life and extensive damage" and praising the "incredible resiliency of the Philippine people". 
 
 Typhoon Haiyan has now made landfall in Vietnam, near the tourist destination of Ha Long Bay, but as a much reduced Category One, with sustained winds of up to 140 km/h (85mph). 
 
 Some 600,000 people were evacuated in northern provinces. 
 
 'Not enough manpower' 
 
 The relief efforts in the Philippines are being focused on the eastern province of Leyte and its capital Tacloban. 
 
 But officials in the city said they were struggling to distribute aid, looting was widespread and order was proving difficult to enforce. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage emerged of people caught in floodwaters in Tacloban on Friday 
 
 In some areas, the dead are being buried in mass graves. 
 
 Houses have been flattened by the massive storm surge that accompanied Typhoon Haiyan. 
 
 "There is looting in the malls and large supermarkets. They are taking everything, even appliances like TV sets. These will be traded later on for food," said Tacloban city administrator Tecson John Lim. 
 
 "We don't have enough manpower. We have 2,000 employees but only about 100 are reporting for work. Everyone is attending to their families." 
 
 President Benigno Aquino, who has visited Tacloban, pledged to send 300 police and soldiers to "bring back peace and order". 
 
 But local residents fear for their safety. 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption An aerial shot shows the devastation in Tacloban 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption The storm was so powerful that it washed large ships ashore in the city 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A storm surge up to 10m high swept away vehicles 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Philippine President Benigno Aquino surveyed the damage at Tacloban airport 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption People have been struggling to find food and looting has been reported 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption The nearby town of Palo was also devastated 
 
 "Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families," high school teacher Andrew Pomeda told AFP news agency. 
 
 "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." 
 
 Tacloban city First Philippines city to be liberated from the Japanese in World War II 
 
 US Gen Douglas MacArthur came ashore here in October 1944 
 
 Capital of liberated Philippines until February 1945 
 
 Childhood home of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, who was crowned the Rose of Tacloban at the age of 18 Philippine press shocked 
 
 The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports that the scene in Tacloban is one of utter devastation. 
 
 He says hundreds of people are at the airport, itself badly damaged, trying to get on a flight out of the city. 
 
 Philippine Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said the scale of the relief operation that was now required was overwhelming, with some places described as a wasteland of mud and debris. 
 
 "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," he told Reuters. 
 
 A UN official who arrived in Tacloban on Saturday, Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, said he was told there had been a 3m (10ft) water surge through the city, in places up to 10m. 
 
 Deadly typhoons Sept 1937 Hong Kong typhoon - 11,000 dead 
 
 - 11,000 dead Sept 1959 Typhoon Vera - deadliest to hit Japan, killing 5,238 people 
 
 - deadliest to hit Japan, killing 5,238 people Aug 1975 Typhoon Nina - about 229,000 die in China after collapse of Banqiao dam 
 
 - about 229,000 die in China after collapse of Banqiao dam Nov 1991 Typhoon Thelma - deadliest in the Philippines to date, killing 5-8,000 
 
 Meanwhile Leo Dacaynos, an official in Eastern Samar province, told local radio 300 people had been found dead in a single town, Basey, with another 2,000 missing and many injured. 
 
 Communication is still limited in many areas. 
 
 In Guiuan, a town of 40,000 people near where the typhoon made landfall, television footage showed flattened houses and roads strewn with debris. 
 
 One woman told the ABS-CBN channel: "I have no house, I have no clothes. I don't know how I will restart my life... I don't know what happened to us. We are appealing for help. Whoever has a good heart, I appeal to you - please help Guiuan." 
 
 The town of Baco, in Oriental Mindoro province, to the north-west, is said to be 80% under water. 
 
 The latest report from the Philippines' Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council confirmed 229 deaths as of 11:00 GMT on Sunday. It said almost 630,000 people had been reported displaced. 
 
 The Philippines has been offered aid from overseas: 
 
 US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the US was delivering helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and search and rescue equipment on request 
 
 The European Commission released 3m euros ($4m; £2.5m) in emergency funds and is sending a team of humanitarian experts 
 
 The UK Rapid Response Facility is to provide £5m ($8m) in aid and a £600,000 shipment of emergency equipment. A team of four experts is already in the disaster zone 
 
 The UN is to provide tents, food and relief supplies 
 
 Typhoon Haiyan - one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall - swept through six central Philippine islands on Friday. 
 
 It brought sustained winds of 235km/h (147mph), with gusts of 275 km/h (170 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places. ||||| The few doctors here said they've been treating cuts, fractures and pregnancy complications but expect to face more serious problems soon. 
 
 Residents stand next to grafitti requesting aid in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. As many as 10,000 people are feared dead in the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year. (Photo: Kevin Frayer, Getty Images) Story Highlights The risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera will increase 
 
 Getting in good clean water is a priority, said U.N. 
 
 The government says planes, ships and trucks were on their way with help 
 
 MANILA — Hundreds of injured people, pregnant women, children and the elderly have been crowding into a small building behind the control tower of this city's airport, one of the few places to find medical care here. 
 
 The few doctors here said Wednesday they've been treating cuts, fractures and pregnancy complications but expect that soon they will be faced with more serious problems such as pneumonia, dehydration, diarrhea and infections. 
 
 "Certainly there are many people who had chronic illnesses before this disaster struck who need to be taken to the medical treatment center that area still working," said Mathias Eick, Regional Information Officer, East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, European Commission- Directorate General for Humanitarian and Civil Protection. 
 
 "You have the elderly, small children, babies who are being born, there are many things." 
 
 But because there is no clean running water, he said, the risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera will increase and that could cause serious trouble. 
 
 "You have people sleeping out in the open, so malaria or dengue could be a threat," he said. "There are thousands of injured people who need medical treatment, and many of the medical facilities have also been damaged so they are working under very truing circumstances." 
 
 Getting in good clean water is a priority, said U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos after touring Tacloban. 
 
 Very little aid has arrived in the city because of clogged roads, broken bridges and ports, and an airport that until today was not able to operate at night given the electricity went out on the Friday that the typhoon hit and has not been restored. Power generators were flooded as well. 
 
 Most of the aid is stuck in Manila and the nearby airport of Cebu, a 45-minute flight away. 
 
 "There's a lot of dead bodies outside. There's no water, no food," said Dr. Victoriano Sambale, one of the dozen medical workers tending to thousands of people at the airport clinic. 
 
 Until Wednesday there was no anesthetic. 
 
 "Patients had to endure the pain," Sambale said. 
 
 Clutching her swollen belly, 26-year-old Reve Rose was writhing on her side on a wooden bench as her husband looked on. Her first child was not due until around Christmas, but she feared she was in labor already. Sambale felt her belly and tried to calm her down, certain it was just a panic attack. 
 
 "I am nervous, sad," she said. "The house is lost. Everything is gone." 
 
 Thelma Superable, 74, was vomiting and needed emergency dialysis. She, her 51-year-old son, Danny Superable, and his young son have made their way to the clinic from their home, 20 miles away, by walking and hitching rides. 
 
 "I am trembling because I am hungry," Danny Superable said. "It's survival of the fittest." 
 
 The government says planes, ships and trucks were on their way with generators, water-purifying kits and emergency lights. The U.S. military said it was installing equipment to allow the damaged Tacloban airport to operate at night. 
 
 Rick said more doctors and medical help is needed but there will be a great need to fly people in serious distress. The Belgian government was setting up a field hospital hospital Wednesday with doctors and nurses who can help with basic health needs, he said. 
 
 "But certainly more chronic or serious cases will have to be evacuated from the zone and taken somewhere where there are still functioning health institutions," he said. 
 
 But it could all be overwhelmed with an epidemic of diseases from people drinking dirty water and exposure to filth. 
 
 "There could be other threats from especially the lack of proper sanitation facilities, children in the open getting chronic coughs or lung infections," he said. "All these issues are a threat to the population at the moment." 
 
 Contributing: The Associated Press 
 
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– Help is finally beginning to reach hundreds of thousands of people struggling to survive in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. The USS George Washington and two US cruisers have arrived in the Philippines and will distribute food, water, and medicine, as well as assist search and rescue operations in what the top US commander in the Philippines tells the BBC will be an American aid effort on an unprecedented scale. US planes are bringing in supplies and a medical ship is on the way; Britain is also sending an aircraft carrier, notes the BBC. In other developments: Supplies from the US and other countries are arriving, but some areas are still in desperate need of relief and "the major challenge is logistics," a European Commission spokesman tells the LA Times. "With all this aid arriving and at the same time, the various Philippine authorities—military, civilian structures, the Philippine Red Cross—trying to distribute aid to so many communities ... obviously there are bottlenecks." Lawlessness in the devastated city of Tacloban is also slowing the distribution of aid, the Guardian finds. A Red Cross convoy was allegedly hijacked by armed men and there are rumors that inmates who escaped during the storm have been ambushing people carrying supplies. Communist rebels have declared a ceasefire in disaster areas, but troops say there has been at least one attack. Some 2,357 people have been confirmed dead, but the toll is expected to rise significantly as remote areas hit hard by the storm are reached. In Tacloban, where bodies are being trucked to mass graves, the city administrator says he is sticking by his original estimate of 10,000 dead in the city alone. In a smaller city south of Tacloban, the devastation is even worse and a 16-member medical team from California is laboring in extreme conditions to help survivors, NBC finds. The volunteer surgeons—working by flashlight in Tanawan's ruined town hall—believe the region will need help for months. "I don’t know when or how we are going to be able to leave," one doctor says. "This is just the beginning of a wave of misery." USA Today has more on that front: The few doctors in Manila are already overwhelmed with hundreds of patients—and those are mostly minor injuries. They're soon expecting to see big problems like pneumonia, diarrhea, infections, and dehydration. And the New York Times looks at a hospital in Tacloban that has no power, where victims lay waiting for care. Food, water, and medical supplies are short; one patient interviewed by the Times says he has not received painkillers, antibiotics, or even an antiseptic for his wounds.