Battle for aid to reach typhoon survivors

Workers in the typhoon-shattered city of Tacloban buried scores of unidentified bodies in a hillside mass burial as desperately needed aid began to reach some of the half-million people displaced by the disaster.

Dozens more bodies were lined up in bags outside Tacloban City Hall waiting to be taken to burial sites. Six days after typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines, many of the dead were still lying along roads as survivors searched for bodies buried under the rubble.

Philippine soldiers on trucks distributed rice and water as chainsaw-wielding teams cut debris from blocked roads. Thousands more swarmed the city’s damaged airport, desperate to leave or to get treatment at a makeshift medical centre.