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. ||||| Eight people have been killed in the typhoon-ravaged central Philippines after thousands of Haiyan survivors stormed a government-owned rice warehouse seeking food supplies. 
 
 The Philippines National Food Authority said police and soldiers stood by helpless as people streamed into the warehouse in Alangalang, Leyte province – an area where hunger and desperation are running high after Haiyan made landfall early on Friday morning, ravaging vast swaths of Leyte and Samar islands. The security forces could only watch as more than 100,000 sacks of rice were carried away. 
 
 The eight were crushed to death when a wall in the warehouse collapsed, spokesman Rex Estoperez told the Associated Press. Other rice warehouses were dotted around the region, he said, refusing to give their locations for security reasons. 
 
 The Philippines government has come under fire for failing to deliver aid adequately or quickly enough, with growing frustration in the hardest hit areas, such as Tacloban, the capital of Leyte province where dead bodies have piled up on the streets and residents have resorted to looting to find food. 
 
 A military official told the Guardian on Wednesday that the government was aiming to double its relief efforts within the next two days. Attempts to provide help were buoyed by the expected arrival of two extra US military C-130 planes and one additional Australian air force plane. 
 
 Three relief distribution points were being set up in the Leyte island towns of Tacloban, Guiuan and Ormoc, the official said, with the main aid effort operating out of neighbouring Cebu instead of Manila, the capital, which is 360 miles to the north. 
 
 More than 10,000 people are feared to have been killed in the Philippines due to Haiyan, most of them in Leyte province, with aid workers suggesting that number may rise significantly. As many as 29 municipalities have still not been reached due to impassable roads and downed telecommunications. 
 
 President Benigno Aquino III said on Tuesday that he believed the number killed to be far lower – around 2,500 – and told CNN that the 10,000 figure may have come from an "emotional" official, with government figures alleging that the death toll stands at 2,275. The UN has said more than 670,000 people have been displaced and a total of 11.3 million people directly affected by the super storm. 
 
 International relief efforts intensified with the launch of a UN appeal and the dispatch of American, British and Japanese troops to the affected regions. But minimal amounts of aid have reached the worst‑hit areas. 
 
 More than 3,000 people surged on to the tarmac of Tacloban airport on Tuesday morning in the hope of flying out on the two Philippine air force planes that had just arrived. 
 
 Babies and sick or elderly people were given priority but only a few hundred were able to leave. Others were held back by soldiers and police. Many had walked for hours and camped at the base overnight. 
 
 "I was pleading with the soldiers. I was kneeling and begging because I have diabetes," said Helen Cordial as she lay on a stretcher, shaking. "Do they want me to die in this airport? They are stone-hearted," she told the Associated Press. 
 
 Dean Smith, an Australian who has been living with his family near Palo, Leyte province, for the last five years, told the Guardian that he waited eight hours to be able to get one of the first commercial flights out of Tacloban to Cebu. On the way to the airport he said he saw "horrifying things that I know I have seen but my brain hasn't processed yet". 
 
 He described scenes of chaos in the city centre, where police were stealing money from the local cashpoints, people in cars were refusing to drive the injured to get help, and the bloated body of a man floating in dirty water was being gnawed at by a dog. 
 
 "What people have gone through, what they have seen – there is going to be a lot of post-traumatic stress after this event I assure you," he said shakily. "No one has ever seen anything like this." 
 
 Having arrived on Tuesday in Cebu, Smith was planning to stock up on food, medicine and water and take it back to his Palo home, where his wife, six children, a 92-year-old grandmother and a pregnant nanny were all desperately awaiting supplies. He departed for Tacloban early on Wednesday morning. 
 
 Domestic and international relief efforts were being hampered by wet weather, poor communications and damaged infrastructure, with aircraft only able to land in Tacloban during daylight hours because the air control tower had been destroyed by Haiyan. Unsubstantiated reports of aid convoys being attacked by hungry victims circulated, with the Telegraph reporting that communist rebels had been killed whilst trying to intercept a Red Cross convoy destined for the island of Samar. 
 
 Still, Corizon Soliman, secretary of the Philippine department of social welfare and development, said aid had so far reached a third of the city's 45,000 families. 
 
 However armed forces spokesman Ramon Zagala told the BBC that relief workers were struggling to deliver aid for a number of reasons. 
 
 "The area is very vast and the number of helicopters – although we have a lot of helicopters at the moment – it's really a challenge for us to bring [aid] to all the places and [bring] the number of goods that are needed." 
 
 The BBC quoted a Leyte official as saying that although relief goods like medicine and equipment were arriving into the province "it's just not reaching the people affected". 
 
 The UN released $25m (£15.7m) in emergency funds for shelter materials and household items, and for assistance with emergency health services, safe water supplies and sanitation. 
 
 The UN aid chief, Valerie Amos, launched an appeal for $300m as she arrived in Manila. "We have deployed specialist teams, vital logistics support and dispatched critical supplies but we have to do more and faster," she said. 
 
 The US, Britain, Japan, Australia and other nations have pledged tens of millions of dollars in immediate aid, and some businesses have also offered help: banking group HSBC announced a $1m (£630,000) cash donation. 
 
 In Tacloban shops were stripped of food and water by hungry residents. While some tents had arrived, the widespread damage left many people sleeping in the ruins of their homes or under shredded trees. 
 
 Military doctors at a makeshift clinic at the airport said they had treated about 1,000 people for cuts, bruises and deep wounds but did not have enough medical supplies. 
 
 "It's overwhelming," said Antonio Tamayo, an air force captain. "We need more medicine. We can't give anti-tetanus vaccine shots because we have none." 
 
 The typhoon flattened Basey, a seaside town in Samar province about six miles across a bay from Tacloban. About 2,000 people were missing there, its governor said. Rescue and relief workers were yet to reach many of the more remote areas. 
 
 "There are hundreds of other towns and villages stretched over thousands of kilometres that were in the path of the typhoon and with which all communication has been cut," said Natasha Reyes, emergency co-ordinator in the Philippines at Médecins Sans Frontières. "No one knows what the situation is like in these more rural and remote places, and it's going to be some time before we have a full picture." 
 
 Damage to communications left the armed forces struggling to reach local authorities and many officials were dead, missing or trying to protect their own families. 
 
 "Basically the only branch of government that is working here is the military," Ruben Guinolbay, a Philippine army captain, told Reuters in Tacloban. "That is not good. We are not supposed to take over government." 
 
 The interior secretary, Manuel Roxas, said on Tuesday that only 20 of Tacloban's 293 police had arrived for work. But he added: "Today we have stabilised the situation. There are no longer reports of looting. The food supply is coming in. Up to 50,000 food packs are coming in every day, with each pack able to feed up to a family of five for three days." 
 
 A team of British medical experts and the first consignment of aid from the UK was leaving for the Philippines, David Cameron said on Tuesday. 
 
 The UK surgical team, led by Anthony Redmond, Manchester University professor of international emergency medicine, includes three emergency physicians, two orthopaedic surgeons, a plastic surgeon, two accident and emergency nurses, a theatre nurse, two anaesthetists and one specialist physiotherapist. 
 
 The USS George Washington aircraft carrier, transporting about 5,000 sailors and more than 80 aircraft, plus four other US navy ships, should arrive in two to three days, the Pentagon said. 
 
 Britain's HMS Daring, a warship with equipment to make drinking water from seawater, and a military transport aircraft should arrive around the same time. 
 
 Japan is sending a team of 40 from its self-defence force. 
 
 Aquino has declared a state of national calamity, allowing the central government to release emergency funds more quickly and impose price controls. 
 
 Initial estimates of the cost of the damage vary widely, with a report from German-based CEDIM Forensic Disaster Analysis putting the total at anywhere from $8bn to $19bn. ||||| MANILA — Five days after Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the central Philippines, panic was spreading Wednesday and parched, hungry residents were resorting to increasingly desperate measures, including breaking into the homes of the dead. 
 
 Eight people were crushed to death when a huge crowd stormed a rice warehouse near Tacloban, one of the worst-hit cities, authorities said. More than 100,000 bags of rice were carted away in the melee, according to news reports Wednesday. 
 
 Elsewhere, residents dug up underground pipes and smashed them open to get water. 
 
 PHOTOS: Central Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan 
 
 The official death toll stood at 2,275, but aid workers feared it would continue to grow. The United Nations estimates that more than 11 million people were affected by the storm, one of the most powerful ever to make landfall. 
 
 As concerns grew about rampant looting and lawlessness, Philippine security forces sent reinforcements and imposed a nighttime curfew in Tacloban. Armed assailants have been holding up aid convoys headed to the city. On Tuesday, troops killed two suspected communist rebels who attacked one such convoy, the military said. 
 
 Local officials said bands of looters, having cleaned out shops in Tacloban, were beginning to break into the homes of people who had died or fled the city. But there were reports that newly arrived troops were restoring order. 
 
 Flights delivering aid from around the world are arriving at the airport in Cebu, which has been turned into a logistics hub for the relief effort. The many donations included a field hospital from Belgium and a portable purification plant from Germany, according to European officials. 
 
 By the end of the day Wednesday, the United States had delivered nearly 274,000 pounds of supplies to Tacloban, about 100 miles northeast of Cebu, said two senior Obama administration officials who briefed reporters in Washington on condition of anonymity. The shipments included plastic tarps, hygiene kits, blankets and medical supplies. 
 
 U.S. military personnel had also evacuated about 800 people from Tacloban to Manila for medical treatment. 
 
 Philippine welfare personnel loaded up packages of rice and canned food provided by the World Food Program and distributed them to nearly 50,000 Tacloban residents. But even there, where the bulk of assistance has been delivered, bodies still lined the streets because, authorities said, there were not enough hands to remove them. 
 
 Hundreds of additional Marines are expected to arrive in the Philippines by week's end to bolster the relief effort, which has struggled against logistical hurdles and the scale of the devastation. 
 
 Aid has yet to reach many victims of the typhoon, known by Filipinos as Yolanda, particularly on outlying islands. 
 
 "The major challenge is logistics," said Mathias Eick, a regional spokesman for the European Commission's humanitarian aid directorate. "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." 
 
 Some of the logistical problems eased Wednesday, as remote airstrips and major roads were cleared of debris. However, fuel shortages and lack of power remain problems in rural areas. 
 
 The longer the aid takes to arrive, the more people try to leave. Every day, desperate residents gather at Tacloban airport hoping for a spot on one of the departing supply planes. 
 
 "It's a very natural decision to take," Eick said. "However, that of course makes it difficult for aid agencies to find out where people are going to, where people are staying, and how much is needed in the various towns." 
 
 With much of the aid headed to Tacloban, on the island of Leyte, concern is growing for other hard-hit communities, such as the port of Ormoc. 
 
 "There is enough food in Ormoc for about two or three days, but if aid doesn't come through soon ... the situation could descend into chaos," said Julien Anseau, a spokesman for the U.S.-based aid group ChildFund International. "What we are seeing is aid coming into Ormoc, but it's not staying in Ormoc, it's going on to Tacloban." 
 
 An assessment team from the international aid group Doctors Without Borders visited Guiuan, in Eastern Samar province, where the typhoon first made landfall. 
 
 "The village has been flattened — houses, medical facilities, rice fields, fishing boats, all destroyed. People are living out in the open; there are no roofs left standing in the whole of Guiuan," team leader Alexis Moens said in a statement. "The needs are immense, and there are a lot of surrounding villages that are not yet covered by any aid organizations." 
 
 Defending the relief effort, Philippine Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras said Wednesday that major roads have been cleared of debris and authorities have reached all but four affected areas to assess the needs. Additional logistics hubs are being established in Ormoc and at an airstrip in Guiuan. 
 
 Aid deliveries will accelerate, Almendras told reporters. "It's just we have not seen anything on the magnitude that we are talking now." 
 
 Amid the devastation, there were heartwarming moments of resilience. Daryl Dano flew from Manila to Tacloban to search for her family, whom she found alive. When she arrived in the morning, she said residents were busy sifting through the vast fields of debris for anything they could salvage. But at night, she said, she was amazed to see people light a bonfire and gather in a circle to sing. 
 
 "They were sitting like Boy Scouts, sharing survival stories and what they did," she said. "They were sometimes even making jokes about the destruction around them. 
 
 "I asked them why or how they could laugh?" she said. A person replied, "I just have to think happy thoughts. This is my second life. I just have to move on from this point to the next." 
 
 [For the Record, 11:47 a.m. PST Nov. 14: In an earlier version of this post, Mathias Eick's last name was incorrectly given as Rick.] 
 
 alexandra.zavis@latimes.com 
 
 De Leon is a special correspondent. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from Tacloban where families have to bury their own dead 
 
 Philippine President Benigno Aquino has declared a state of national calamity to speed relief efforts for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. 
 
 In a statement, he said the two worst affected provinces, Leyte and Samar, had suffered massive destruction and loss of life. 
 
 Thousands of survivors are still desperately waiting for the aid effort to reach them. 
 
 At least 10,000 people are feared to have been killed. 
 
 Tacloban is one of the worst affected cities. The BBC's Jon Donnison, who is there, says there does not yet seem to be an effective operation to get help to those in need. 
 
 This is expected to change over the next few days, he says. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "One shirt. That's all I'm asking for": The BBC hears survivors' stories 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's George Alagiah reports from a makeshift distribution centre at Manila airport 
 
 Hundreds of thousands more people have been displaced after the high winds and floodwaters destroyed their homes. Damage to roads and airports has delayed the delivery of aid. 
 
 The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the UN would launch a large-scale humanitarian plan on Tuesday. He called for UN member states to show solidarity with the people of the Philippines. 
 
 Auntie, we need help! Please! We are okay but the house is destroyed Typhoon Haiyan: Survivors' stories 
 
 "We have all seen the heartbreaking images of the impact of this huge storm," he said. 
 
 One of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall, Haiyan - named "Yolanda" by Philippine authorities - struck the coastal provinces of Leyte and Samar on Friday. 
 
 It then headed west, sweeping through six central Philippine islands. 
 
 Struggle 
 
 More than nine million people have been affected in the Philippines. Many are now struggling to survive without food, shelter or clean drinking water. 
 
 A picture is slowly emerging of the full damage wrought by the storm: 
 
 The exposed easterly town of Guiuan, Samar province - population 40,000 - is said to be largely destroyed 
 
 province - population 40,000 - is said to be largely destroyed Three-hundred people were killed in the town of Basey, also in Samar , the provincial disaster office confirmed 
 
 , the provincial disaster office confirmed Tacloban, Leyte province, was largely flattened by a massive storm surge and scores of corpses are piled by the roadside, leaving a stench in the air as they rot. Hundreds of people gathered at the airport desperate for food and water, others trying to get a flight out 
 
 province, was largely flattened by a massive storm surge and scores of corpses are piled by the roadside, leaving a stench in the air as they rot. Hundreds of people gathered at the airport desperate for food and water, others trying to get a flight out Disaster worker Dennis Chong told the BBC that assessments in the far north of Cebu province had shown some towns had suffered "80-90% damage" 
 
 province had shown some towns had suffered "80-90% damage" Baco, a city of 35,000 in Oriental Mindoro province, was 80% under water, the UN said. 
 
 A huge international relief effort is under way, but rescue workers have struggled to reach areas cut off since the storm. 
 
 However, reports from Tacloban say soldiers have been distributing food and water to some residents and the US military has sent marines to the city. 
 
 The head of the Philippine Red Cross, Richard Gordon, described the situation as "absolute bedlam". 
 
 "It's only now that they were able to get in and we're beginning just to bring in the necessary food items... as well as water and other things that they need," he told the BBC. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Aerial footage shows devastation in Tanauan, Tacloban and Cebu 
 
 Jane Cocking, the humanitarian director for Oxfam, said her colleagues witnessed "complete devastation". 
 
 A Philippine military spokesman was quoted as saying on Monday that 942 people had died in the typhoon's aftermath, though it is clear the official death toll will rise significantly. 
 
 Some 660,000 people have been displaced, according to UN figures, among a total of 9.8 million affected. 
 
 The UN's Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, was is her way to the Philippines. 
 
 A priority of the UN's response teams once on the ground would be the burial of bodies to meet concerns about public health, UN humanitarian official John Ging said. 
 
 "We are certainly expecting the worst," he added. "As we get more and more access we find the tragedy of more and more people killed in this typhoon." 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Three days after Typhoon Haiyan hit, aerial photos are revealing a scene of apocalyptic devastation along a swathe of the central Philippines. 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption The storm flattened houses, leaving thousands homeless in many areas. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption In Tacloban, one of the worst hit cities, the storm washed ships ashore. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption A 21-year-old woman lies exhausted on the debris-covered floor at a makeshift medical facility in Tacloban after giving birth to a baby girl. The storm surge swept away her mother. 
 
 Image copyright AP Image caption The storm, by now much weaker, hit Vietnam in Ha Long City, causing damage and some casualties. 
 
 'Unprecedented' storm 
 
 Some are questioning what more authorities could have done to prepare for this, just the latest in a string of disasters to hit the nation of more than 7,000 islands. 
 
 Authorities had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people before the typhoon arrived, but many evacuation centres - schools, churches and government buildings - proved unable to withstand the winds and storm surges. 
 
 International aid Australia : Aus$10m ($9.4m; £5.8m), including medical personnel 
 
 : Aus$10m ($9.4m; £5.8m), including medical personnel China : $200,000 (£125,000) 
 
 : $200,000 (£125,000) European Commission : 3m euros (£2.5m; $4m) 
 
 : 3m euros (£2.5m; $4m) Indonesia : Aircraft, personnel, drinking water, food, generators, medicine 
 
 : Aircraft, personnel, drinking water, food, generators, medicine Japan : 25 emergency medical personnel 
 
 : 25 emergency medical personnel New Zealand : NZ$2.15m (£1.1m) 
 
 : NZ$2.15m (£1.1m) Taiwan : $200,000 
 
 : $200,000 UK : £10m ($15m) non-food aid package 
 
 : £10m ($15m) non-food aid package UN: central emergency relief fund: $25m 
 
 central emergency relief fund: $25m US : At least 180 marines and sailors, transporter planes, emergency food, water, shelter and hygiene materials 
 
 : At least 180 marines and sailors, transporter planes, emergency food, water, shelter and hygiene materials Vietnam: $100,000 This list is not comprehensive 
 
 Haiyan brought sustained winds of 235km/h (147mph), with gusts of 275 km/h (170 mph) and waves as high as 15m (45ft). In some places, as much as 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain fell. 
 
 Officials said looting was widespread and order was proving difficult to enforce. Correspondents say many ordinary people are simply scavenging for the food and water needed to survive. 
 
 In some areas, the dead are being buried in mass graves. 
 
 American military aircraft and ships are being deployed to provide help. Aid is being flown into the only regional international airport at Cebu, with relief efforts focusing on Tacloban. 
 
 Other countries have also pledged millions of dollars in assistance. Britain is earmarking £10m ($15); Australia has approved $9m in humanitarian aid to the Philippines; while New Zealand has pledged over $1m. 
 
 Typhoon Haiyan later made landfall in Vietnam, near the tourist destination of Ha Long Bay, with sustained winds of up to 140 km/h (85mph). 
 
 Despite losing much of its strength, the storm still felled trees and damaged buildings, with reports of some casualties. 
 
 Some 600,000 people were evacuated in northern provinces of the country. ||||| 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.
– 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.