Typhoon likely killed 'hundreds' in Philippines: govt

A super typhoon likely killed hundreds of people in and around one Philippine town, a government minister who toured the area said Saturday.

AFP News - This NOAA image shows Super Typhoon Haiyan taken by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT at 0630Z on November 7, 2013

"I think hundreds," Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said on ABS-CBN television when asked how many people had died in the coastal town of c and surrounding villages that he visited on devastated Leyte island.

Palo and the neighbouring city of Tacloban were struck by devastating storm surges early Friday as Super Typhoon Haiyan began scything through major central islands, disaster officials have said.

The government earlier said more than a hundred people were believed to have been killed in Tacloban.

Petilla, a Palo native, was dispatched by Philippines President Benigno Aquino to the island, and surveyed the damage aboard a helicopter.

"We saw 24 corpses in Palo, but officials there reported to us that there are people in nearby areas planning to bring their dead to the town centre," he said.

"Palo, Ormoc, Burauen... Carigara, they all looked the same. The buildings were all unroofed and littered with fallen trees," he said, describing the devastation in some of the other Leyte towns and cities that he visited.

However, the casualty figures in these other areas of Leyte were lower, he added.

Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com