Philippine typhoon survivors hope to escape apocalypse

Terra Daily via AFP: In the withered heart of the Philippines' typhoon disaster zone, defeated survivors abandoned hopes Tuesday of a dignified burial for their loved ones and tried to flee aboard military planes. Four days after Super Typhoon Haiyan destroyed entire towns across the central Philippines, leaving more than 10,000 people dead, the worst-hit islands of Leyte and Samar remained largely cut off.

Countless survivors remained trapped in their devastated communities, with roads, bridges and airports destroyed, while paralysed telephone networks and lost mobile phones meant most could not inform relatives outside they were safe.

A lucky few were being taken out for free by Philippine military cargo planes flying in and out of the barely functioning airport at Tacloban, the devastated capital of Leyte province where most of the deaths are believed to have occurred.

Maria Adelfa Jomerez, 58, was one of hundreds of people gathered at the airport hoping to hitch a ride out of their apocalypse, willing to walk away from the bodies of her son, his wife and their four-year-old son. Jomerez said she wanted to fly to Manila, about 600 kilometres (370 miles) away, to join her daughter.

She left her grandson's corpse under a tarpaulin at a devastated city hotel, where other bodies were being temporarily stored, while the bodies of her son and daughter-in-law were in a funeral home. "I asked the mortuary to give my son and his wife proper coffins, but they told me their staff had not reported for work and that some of them were probably dead as well," Jomerez said...

US Marines helping victims of Typhoon Haiyan, November 12, 2013