Relief coming to outlying typhoon survivors in Philippines

Simone Orendain in Voice of America: Relief supplies are getting to a larger number of survivors in the typhoon-stricken central Philippines, but there are still challenges.  The government has confirmed more than 3,600 deaths.

Aid workers say there are visible signs that food and water are getting to people in need in the hardest hit parts of the central provinces.  Sunday, the government said it delivered about 115,000 food packages the previous day, a significant jump from the 45,000 it passed out Friday.

Many of the packages filled with rice and canned goods have been going to Tacloban, the hard-hit city of 220,000, which has so far posted the most deaths.  People there had been suffering as trucks bearing food and water could not get through for days on roads clogged with debris.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino went to a relief goods warehouse in Tacloban Sunday and reassured victims there would be enough aid.  The president also visited the town in Eastern Samar province that took the very first lashings from Super Typhoon Haiyan.

...In addition to Tacloban, Guiuan, farther east, is a staging ground for relief goods.  Those provisions are being sent to the outlying areas that had not received any aid since the typhoon hit more than a week ago....

Locator map of Tacloban, by Mike Gonzalez (TheCoffee), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license