Typhoon Haiyan Kills 10,000

United States Marines were sent to a post-disaster Philippines as the scope of Typhoon Haiyan’s destruction widened, with estimates of the storm killing 10,000  Filipinos and decimating the housing stock in central parts of the country.

Reports of the wreckage, which have grown less optimistic than earlier reports, suggested that widespread looting and a crippled law-enforcement have turned the Philippines into a chaotic disaster zone:

With few if any cars around and no gas available, Larsen said he walked about 10 miles to the airport from a village where he had ridden out the typhoon in a basement. The road was like “death row,” he said. Multi-story buildings had been reduced to heaps of broken concrete, and bodies were strewn about.

Philadelphia-area Filipinos have begun sending money and aid to friends and relatives back home.

The storm made its way to Vietnam after that country evacuated roughly 600,000 people. Reports suggest that the storm has weakened and is not expected to wreak the same destruction in that country. [Los Angeles Times]