Advertisement

Aid Starts To Trickle Into The Philippines

12:36
Download Audio
Resume
A woman survivor of Typhoon Haiyan weeps as she holds her daughter while waiting for her turn to get on a U.S. Air Force plane to leave for the capital city of Manila, at the airport in Tacloban, central Philippines, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013. (Dita Alangkara/AP)
A woman survivor of Typhoon Haiyan weeps as she holds her daughter while waiting for her turn to get on a U.S. Air Force plane to leave for the capital city of Manila, at the airport in Tacloban, central Philippines, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013. (Dita Alangkara/AP)

U.S. military planes are arriving at Tacloban's ruined airport to deliver World Food Program supplies. Some of those supplies will be carried by helicopter to outer regions of the island.

The official death toll from Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the islands six days ago is 2,200, but officials know it will be higher.

It's the children that get you. You want to go out and help every single one of them.

Jonathan Head, BBC reporter

The BBC's Jonathan Head is in Tacloban and joins Here & Now's Robin Young with the latest.

"It's the children that get you," he says. "You want to go out and help every single one of them, and there are just thousands and thousands and thousands, and there's just so little you can do."

We also hear from Pastor Amado Perez, with the United Pentecostal Church International of Missouri. He's a colleague of Reverend Kevin Vacca, the missionary we heard from yesterday.

Perez lives on Cebu island in the Philippines, but he made a trip to the ravaged city of Tacloban to get his daughters, who were stuck there.

“When we docked at the port, the picture that met my eyes, I could describe it in two words: total devastation — it looks like a war-torn area," Perez says. "We heard gun shots because there was a group of people who were about to ransack another warehouse. And the place, some of my friends describe it as a 'dead city.'"

We also hear a report from the BBC's George Alagiah, who was on an aid flight headed to Tacloban that had to turn back due to bad weather.

Guests

  • Jonathan Head, correspondent for the BBC. He tweets @pakhead.
  • Amado Perez, pastor on the island of Cebu, Philippines, with the United Pentecostal Church International of Missouri.

Reporter

  • George Alagiah, journalist for the BBC. He tweets @BBCAlagiah.

This segment aired on November 13, 2013.

Advertisement

More from Here & Now

Listen Live
Close