‘Yolanda’ likely killed ‘hundreds’—Palace official

This photo from the Facebook group Leyte Community Page shows houses destroyed by the strong winds caused by Typhoon Yolanda in Ormoc, Leyte.

MANILA, Philippines—Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name Haiyan) likely killed hundreds of people in and around a coastal town in Leyte, Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla who toured the area said Saturday.

“I think hundreds,” Petilla said on ABS-CBN television when asked how many people had died in the coastal town of Palo and surrounding villages that he visited on devastated Leyte island.

Palo and the neighboring Tacloban City were struck by devastating storm surges early Friday as Yolanda began scything through major central islands, disaster officials have said.

The government earlier said more than a hundred people were believed to have been killed in Tacloban.

Petilla, a Palo native, was dispatched by President Benigno Aquino to the island, and surveyed the damage aboard a helicopter.

“We saw 24 corpses in Palo, but officials there reported to us that there are people in nearby areas planning to bring their dead to the town centre,” he said.

“Palo, Ormoc, Burauen… Carigara, they all looked the same. The buildings were all unroofed and littered with fallen trees,” he said, describing the devastation in some of the other Leyte towns and cities that he visited.

However, the casualty figures in these other areas of Leyte were lower, he added.

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