People are growing increasingly desperate for food, water and medical supplies in typhoon-hit parts of the Philippines, a congressman has warned.
Martin Romualdez, from badly-hit Leyte, said a greater sense of urgency was needed to get aid to those in need.
The UN says more than 11 million people may have been affected and some 673,000 displaced by Typhoon Haiyan.
On Tuesday, eight people died when a wall collapsed as thousands of survivors mobbed a food warehouse.
Police and soldiers were unable to stop the looters, who took more than 100,000 sacks of rice from the government facility in Alangalang, Leyte, said Rex Estoperez, spokesman for the National Food Authority.
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino said the death toll may be lower than first thought.
The widely reported figure of 10,000 killed may have come from officials facing “emotional trauma”, he said, and the real figure was more likely up to 2,500.
So where is the aid? That was the question on everyone’s lips in the district of Pawing, outside Tacloban.
Nearly every house has either been flattened or left without roofs or windows. People are living amid the sodden debris that was once their homes.
They are wet, hungry, and increasingly angry. I watched them making the long trek into Tacloban in search of food, and returning empty-handed. One long queue outside a food warehouse quickly broke down into a free-for-all, people grabbing whatever they could.
The local government was pretty much wiped out by the typhoon. That’s why the central government has taken over the running of Tacloban. But it is almost invisible. Without power or phone communications, people have no idea whether anything is being done for them.
The airport, while badly battered, is functioning. Planes come and go, several every hour. But they are not bringing much in, only taking people out. The Philippine army and police are very visible there, much less so in the rest of the city.
By day five of a disaster like this, you would expect to see some preparations for a scaled-up aid programme at the airport. There are still very few signs of that here. Instead, there are still corpses, lying uncollected, at the end of the runway.
But he said 29 municipalities had yet to be contacted to establish the number of victims there.
The president also warned that storms like Haiyan – known in the Philippines as Yolanda – were becoming more frequent, and there should be “no debate” that climate change was happening.
He said either the world committed to action on climate change “or let us be prepared to meet disasters”.
Typhoon Haiyan – one of the most powerful storms ever recorded on land – hit the coastal provinces of Leyte and Samar on Friday.
It swept through six central Philippine islands before going on to kill several people in Vietnam and southern China.
The Philippines National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has put the official death toll at 1,833, as of 06:00 local time (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday. The number of injured stands at 2,623 with 84 listed as missing.
Relief operations are being stepped up, but damage to transport links and continuing bad weather have hindered aid distribution.
The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Tacloban – a city of 220,000 on Leyte island which is particularly badly affected – says residents are becoming angry at the lack of progress and increasing breakdown in security.
Planes are arriving at the airport, but bringing little in and only taking people out, and there is little sign of a co-ordinated relief operation, he says.
‘Massive destruction’
Martin Romualdez told the BBC that he believed the government was giving “conservative” estimates of the death toll “so as not to cause undue alarm”.
“But just viewing the disaster’s scope – its magnitude and the areas affected – we believe that the 10,000 figure is more probable,” he said. “As we start cleaning up we are finding more bodies.”
He said the “sense of urgency should be stepped up at the national level as the international relief organisations come in”.
“Better co-ordination is needed, because we are seeing a lot of relief goods, medicines, equipment, coming in, but it’s not reaching the people affected, thereby causing a sense of hopelessness and desperation in many of those who have survived and are now fleeing their homes, their municipalities, their locales, out of sheer desperation.”
He said the damage to Tacloban was “so massive in scale and so extensive in our areas that we literally would have to rebuild from scratch”.
“We just imagine it, our area, as a ground zero, as if a nuclear bomb had exploded above us.”
Philippine armed forces spokesman Ramon Zagala told the BBC teams were struggling to reach isolated places.
“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.”
But Philippine Interior Minister Mar Roxas told the BBC that relief efforts were on track.
“Our first priorities were, number one, to establish law and order; number two, to bring food and water to the people; and, number three, to recover the cadaver bags,” he said.
“[Now] law and order has been stabilised, the supply of food and water is beginning – I’m not saying that we’re anywhere near it – [but it] is beginning to be stabilised… and now we are concentrating on recovery of cadavers as well as on the distribution of the food and the relief that is coming in.”
On Tuesday the UN launched an appeal for $301m (£190m) to help survivors. It has already released $25m to meet immediate needs.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says 11.3 million people are in need of vital goods and services, because of factors such as lack of food, healthcare and access to education and livelihoods.
The UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has also launched an appeal.
US and British navy vessels are heading to the Philippines and several nations have pledged millions of dollars in aid.
BBC
