Bloated bodies lay uncollected and uncounted in the streets and desperate survivors pleaded for food, water and medicine as rescue workers took on a daunting task in the typhoon-battered islands of the Philippines.
At least 10,000 are feared dead.
The hard-hit city of Tacloban resembles a garbage dump from the air, with only a few concrete buildings left standing in the wake of one of the most powerful storms to ever hit land, packing 236km winds and whipping up six-metre walls of seawater that tossed ships inland and swept many out to sea.
"Help. SOS. We need food," read a message painted by a survivor in large letters on the ravaged city's port, where water lapped at the edge.
There was no one to carry away the dead, who lay rotting along the main road from the airport to Tacloban, the worst-hit city along the country's remote eastern seaboard.
At a small naval base, eight swollen corpses - including that of a baby - were submerged in water brought in by the storm. Officers are yet to move them, saying they have no body bags or electricity to preserve them.
Authorities estimate the typhoon has killed 10,000 or more people, but with the slow pace of recovery, the official death toll three days after the storm made landfall remains at 942.
However, with shattered communications and transportation links, the final count was likely days away.
"I don't believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way - every single building, every single house," US Marine Brig Gen Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over Tacloban, the largest city in Leyte province.
He spoke on the tarmac at the airport, where two Marine C-130 cargo planes were parked, engines running, unloading supplies.
Authorities say at least 9.7 million people in 41 provinces have been affected by the typhoon, known as Haiyan elsewhere in Asia but called Yolanda in the Philippines. It is likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation.
"Please tell my family I'm alive," said Erika Mae Karakot as she stood among a throng of people waiting for aid.
"We need water and medicine because a lot of the people we are with are wounded. Some are suffering from diarrhea and dehydration due to shortage of food and water."
Philippine soldiers are distributing food and water, and assessment teams from the UN and other international agencies were seen on Monday for the first time.
The US military dispatched food, water, generators and a contingent of Marines to the city, the first outside help in what will swell into a major international relief mission.
Authorities say they have evacuated some 800,000 people ahead of the typhoon, but many evacuation centres proved to be no protection against the wind and rising water.
Emily Ortega, 21 and about to give birth, said she clung to a post to survive after the evacuation centre she fled to was devastated by the six-metre storm surge.
She reached safety at the airport, where she gave birth to a baby girl, Bea Joy Sagales, whose arrival drew applause from the military medics who assisted in the delivery.
The wind, rain and coastal storm surges transformed neighbourhoods into twisted piles of debris, blocking roads and trapping decomposing bodies underneath. Cars and trucks lay upended among flattened homes, and bridges and ports were washed away.
"In some cases the devastation has been total," said Secretary to the Cabinet, Rene Almendras.
In Tacloban, residents stripped malls, shops and homes of food, water and consumer goods. Officials say some of the looting smacked of desperation but in other cases people hauled away TVs, fridges, Christmas trees and even a treadmill.
Brig Gen Kennedy said Philippine forces were handling security well and US troops were "looking at how to open up roads and land planes and helicopters" in order to bring in shelter, water and other supplies.
Still, those caught in the storm are worried aid will not arrive soon enough.
"We're afraid that it's going to get dangerous in town because relief goods are trickling in very slow," said Bobbie Womack, an American missionary.
Marvin Daga, a 19-year-old student, tried to ride out the storm in his home with his ailing father, Mario, but the storm surge carried the building away.
They clung to each other while the house floated for a while, but it eventually crumbled and they fell into churning waters. The teen grabbed a coconut tree with one hand and his father with the other, but he slipped out of his grasp.
"I hope that he survived," Marvin said as tears filled his eyes. "But I'm not expecting to find him any more."
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III declared a "state of national calamity", allowing the central government to release emergency funds quicker and impose price controls on staple goods.
He says the two worst-hit provinces, Leyte and Samar, have witnessed "massive destruction and loss of life" but that elsewhere casualties are low.
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