:00:00. > :00:00.suspicion of murder. Now on BBC News it is time for
:00:00. > :00:19.reporters Mac. Hello and welcome to this special
:00:20. > :00:25.edition of Reporters. I'm Tim Willcox, in Tacloban, one of the
:00:26. > :00:27.worst hit areas of Typhoon Haiyan. In this week's programme, islands of
:00:28. > :00:30.death and destruction, thousands killed and millions affected as one
:00:31. > :00:38.of the worst typhoons on record ravages the Philippines. Survivors
:00:39. > :00:45.with nothing left, Jon Donnison travels to one city where the cries
:00:46. > :00:52.for help are still overwhelming. Please, come to my city. We need
:00:53. > :00:54.you. We need help. Taking the world by surprise, our
:00:55. > :01:02.environmental editor David Shipman explains why the force of Typhoon
:01:03. > :01:05.Haiyan was so difficult to predict. And turning to faith, George Alagiah
:01:06. > :01:15.reports on the important role the church is now playing for Asia's
:01:16. > :01:18.largest Catholic population. Hello and welcome to Reporters, where we
:01:19. > :01:22.will be assessing the impact of Typhoon Haiyan. We now know that
:01:23. > :01:25.millions of people in more than 40 provinces in the Philippines were
:01:26. > :01:30.affected by the super storm, one of the strongest ever to make landfall.
:01:31. > :01:33.The survivors have had a very difficult time for the past week and
:01:34. > :01:38.Rupert Wingfield`Hayes has been listening to some of their stories.
:01:39. > :01:42.You may find some of the images disturbing.
:01:43. > :01:55.This is the main government hospital in the middle of Tacloban.
:01:56. > :01:59.Joseph and his friends have come to collect the body of his sister. For
:02:00. > :02:06.three days it lay uncovered in the street. Now with a home`made cotton
:02:07. > :02:16.and masks to cover the stench, they must carry it on foot to the burial
:02:17. > :02:20.ground. In the street where Josef's sister lived, this man is trying to
:02:21. > :02:34.make a list of all of his neighbours by debt. `` who are dead. Servers
:02:35. > :02:41.are all children? Yes. A woman was found in that house. It is still
:02:42. > :02:47.really almost impossible to know how many people have died in this
:02:48. > :02:53.devastation, in this disaster. To give you an idea, we have been told
:02:54. > :02:58.in this one street, 18 people died. 18 just in this little stretch of
:02:59. > :03:02.road in the neighbourhood. Many bodies are still lying in the houses
:03:03. > :03:07.or out in the baking sun. They are starting to putrefy. In the next
:03:08. > :03:13.street over, Mildred and her family survived by clinging to the roof of
:03:14. > :03:17.the house. For the survivors, the biggest here now is hunger. They are
:03:18. > :03:24.trying to drown their waterlogged rice. Nobody knows for sure if it is
:03:25. > :03:30.still edible. Where is the government? Where is the help? The
:03:31. > :03:40.biggest problem here is food. Many people have died. We need food.
:03:41. > :03:46.Water. We have rice. That is all we need. That is the most important.
:03:47. > :03:54.All of the dead bodies must be buried. Down by the sea they are
:03:55. > :04:00.digging a grave. The mother of the three young men. Suddenly, one of
:04:01. > :04:11.her sons is overcome by grief and frustration. His mother's body is
:04:12. > :04:18.stuck under a fallen coconut tree. They cannot get it out. I ask her
:04:19. > :04:26.husband how they are managing. I think very bad. I could not sleep.
:04:27. > :04:48.She was a very good mother. I am very hopeless. Everything is
:04:49. > :04:55.gone. A short distance away, there have dug a much bigger hole. A mass
:04:56. > :04:59.grave. All afternoon the grim procession continues. We counted at
:05:00. > :05:04.least 30 bodies going on here. How many more are being dug along this
:05:05. > :05:13.coast? We do not know. Except, it is many.
:05:14. > :05:16.As the full scale of the damage emerged, there are complaints by
:05:17. > :05:22.some that the aid effort was being poorly run. We went to see some of
:05:23. > :05:32.the survivors without food or shelter.
:05:33. > :05:35.There is not much left with a roof in Tacloban. The Astrodome Arena was
:05:36. > :05:38.one of the few buildings big enough to withstand Typhoon Haiyan. It is
:05:39. > :05:41.now a shelter for hundreds of families who have lost or missing.
:05:42. > :05:43.`` everything. Thousands of people are camped out here in filthy
:05:44. > :05:47.conditions. Seven families are living in this one tent. Finally
:05:48. > :05:53.there is a team of doctors, one of the first signs of help beginning to
:05:54. > :05:59.arrive. A stair landing is now home for this family. Lee managed to get
:06:00. > :06:04.his wife Jessica and seven children here just hours before the typhoon
:06:05. > :06:11.hit. They have one`month`old twin boys. He tells me they have enough
:06:12. > :06:21.baby formula to last just four more days. He says only God is giving him
:06:22. > :06:25.the strength to carry on. He says he's lucky his family are still
:06:26. > :06:29.alive. Thousands of people were seeking shelter here at the
:06:30. > :06:33.Astrodome when the typhoon struck. This was one of the main evacuation
:06:34. > :06:36.centres, but such was the size of the storm surge coming in from the
:06:37. > :06:45.ocean that the water came right up to this balcony. People can see aid
:06:46. > :06:55.is now being flown in greater amounts. But little has arrived here
:06:56. > :07:00.yet. This man is a school teacher. Like many he feels abandoned. People
:07:01. > :07:09.of the world, come to my city. We need you. Please. Come to my city.
:07:10. > :07:14.We need you. We need help. We need help very badly. Until it comes to,
:07:15. > :07:37.people like Lee are having to comfort their families as best they
:07:38. > :07:39.can. Aid supplies eventually reached some
:07:40. > :07:45.parts of the country. At other areas were completely without power,
:07:46. > :07:51.communications, food or water. We saw the damage overall.
:07:52. > :07:57.Far out on the horizon, an island struck by the Eye of the typhoon.
:07:58. > :08:03.The lifeline is the passenger ferry. The aid eventually comes, this is
:08:04. > :08:09.how it will reach the people. And it is how this woman hopes she will
:08:10. > :08:13.find her family. She, her sister, her daughter on a rescue mission. In
:08:14. > :08:19.the hope her parents made it through the storm. The have a car full of
:08:20. > :08:25.food and water, but do not know what to expect on the road ahead. We came
:08:26. > :08:30.to rescue my family. They do not have food. I heard from the social
:08:31. > :08:38.network, Facebook, there is no more food. Nothing to do. I do not know
:08:39. > :08:43.if they are alive or not. We do not have any connection yet. We followed
:08:44. > :08:49.them on the road north. It is now a familiar sight. House after house
:08:50. > :08:58.destroyed. Trees ripped up and tossed aside. Electricity cables
:08:59. > :09:04.down. Hanging by the road. The same landscape for mile after mile. The
:09:05. > :09:08.reason that indications have been so bad of course is because the mobile
:09:09. > :09:13.phone asked supple comedown. Writs have been blocked. If people have
:09:14. > :09:17.family members they have not heard from, the only thing they can do is
:09:18. > :09:20.come out looking for them. And because such a huge area of the
:09:21. > :09:26.central Philippines was affected, getting a doubt all these places is
:09:27. > :09:33.proving slow. Afternoon turned into night. The word worsened as we got
:09:34. > :09:40.near to the family home. They did not know what to expect, seeing all
:09:41. > :09:48.the damage. But then. A family reunited. Everyone is fine. The
:09:49. > :09:54.homes were destroyed. There is a full food or sign of eight. But they
:09:55. > :10:01.survived. `` little food or sign of aid. The whole area is alive. That
:10:02. > :10:07.is the most important thing to me and for my family and my
:10:08. > :10:13.neighbourhood. One family's story among millions.
:10:14. > :10:17.The Philippines is no stranger to violent weather. They have many
:10:18. > :10:23.typhoons each year. But why was this one so strong? David Shipman has
:10:24. > :10:27.been investigating. It takes a view from the air to see
:10:28. > :10:30.the extraordinary scale of devastation. Ferocious winds
:10:31. > :10:37.combined with massive walls of water to lay waste to whole communities.
:10:38. > :10:42.All this is the result of weather at its most extreme. For many people
:10:43. > :10:47.there was simply nowhere to hide. The survivors are now left appealing
:10:48. > :10:53.for aid from the outside world. The typhoon had been forecast but proved
:10:54. > :10:56.completely overwhelming. The thing which made it particularly dangerous
:10:57. > :10:59.was the fact that it reached its peak intensity at the point it made
:11:00. > :11:05.landfall and on that basis it might be one of the strongest typhoons to
:11:06. > :11:08.ever make landfall. To understand this disaster let's use our virtual
:11:09. > :11:13.reality studio to try to piece together how this catastrophic
:11:14. > :11:17.weather unfolded. The people of the Philippines are used to the threat
:11:18. > :11:20.of typhoons. They have had more than 20 this year alone but nowhere near
:11:21. > :11:23.the scale of this one. Like all tropical storms it began with a
:11:24. > :11:26.loose cluster of thunderclouds, nothing unusual, but these quickly
:11:27. > :11:28.merged together to form a single weather system which started
:11:29. > :11:30.rotating, pulling air up into its centre. The storm stretched over 300
:11:31. > :11:49.miles. Buy now it was a typhoon and heat
:11:50. > :11:53.rising from the water added to its string. Higher temperatures and eat
:11:54. > :11:59.more energy. This meant that in the eye of the storm and around it, the
:12:00. > :12:04.wind kept accelerating. Intense low pressure also lifted the sea surface
:12:05. > :12:07.to create a storm surge, another source of danger for anybody and
:12:08. > :12:13.spa. Only the strongest shopping would help them survive. This town
:12:14. > :12:19.before the disaster and the same view after. Almost every house had
:12:20. > :12:31.its roof ripped off. Here is Tacloban scene last year. It had a
:12:32. > :12:34.similar effect. An explosive force. Today, an official from the
:12:35. > :12:38.Philippines was that a climate conference. He is from Tacloban and
:12:39. > :12:42.called for action on global warming. We can fix this, we can
:12:43. > :12:53.stop this madness right now, right here. An emotional moment. The fact
:12:54. > :12:59.is, no single weather even can be blamed on climate change. The
:13:00. > :13:03.massive size of this typhoon is clearly visible from space and
:13:04. > :13:13.scientists are warning that storms this vicious maybe, more likely.
:13:14. > :13:17.This country is made up of thousands of islands and communications are
:13:18. > :13:24.usually difficult. Our correspondent went to the place where the storm at
:13:25. > :13:32.first made landfall. This is where it all started. The very first
:13:33. > :13:42.encounter between storm and land. Not much of a contest. It makes this
:13:43. > :13:47.the first village to be erased and Maria among the first mothers to
:13:48. > :13:56.lose a child. She came here the day before to visit had parents at the
:13:57. > :14:06.beach with her two`year`old son. He was so full of life, so naughty. In
:14:07. > :14:16.the typhoon came and, `` can enter, her grandfather tried to save him.
:14:17. > :14:21.The baby drowned. One week on and the survivors here are still waiting
:14:22. > :14:26.for aid. This may have in the first place to get it but it seems to be
:14:27. > :14:30.amongst the very last to get any help because this is an extremely
:14:31. > :14:35.remote corner of the Philippines. The storm essentially cut it off
:14:36. > :14:43.from the outside world. A few miles away, this town is in no better
:14:44. > :14:49.shape. It is still hard to believe that wind alone did all this. I came
:14:50. > :14:55.to see the man in charge, a 33 `year`old. The military have been
:14:56. > :15:01.trying to stop looters. He is nursing an injury and twitching with
:15:02. > :15:10.stress. The mayor, like the town, is running on empty. They have to be
:15:11. > :15:17.the mayor. You look exhausted. I am stressed but a need to be strong.
:15:18. > :15:28.What do you need? We need food. We need shelters for the people. Easy
:15:29. > :15:36.to see why. The town's sports centre was supposed to be a century but 12
:15:37. > :15:44.died here. This is where my mother was. This 19 `year`old shows me were
:15:45. > :15:52.she and her family were trapped. I kept calling them. My mother and my
:15:53. > :16:01.father but they wouldn't respond. Only my brother saved me. I can
:16:02. > :16:11.still see him. He was in one piece but he was... He was so cold. He was
:16:12. > :16:16.bleeding. Both parents, a doctor and an accountant, died beneath the
:16:17. > :16:23.rubble. She and her 13 `year`old brother have been able to bury them
:16:24. > :16:30.to date in a storm ravaged symmetry. `` bury them today. The children,
:16:31. > :16:45.like the town, left wondering what they have now. They want to be like
:16:46. > :16:54.my mother. A doctor? A great mother. Suddenly, a welcome sight overhead.
:16:55. > :17:01.Two big military aircraft fly past. The crowd rushes out to an old
:17:02. > :17:09.airstrip. They have to come here. They have to come here and give us
:17:10. > :17:14.food. These plans give me hope. Sure enough, at the Americans land on a
:17:15. > :17:21.runway there built during an earlier operation here, World War II. No
:17:22. > :17:24.supplies on board, but a multinational assessment team and
:17:25. > :17:31.promises that aid will finally arrive tomorrow. The visitors leave
:17:32. > :17:37.with a 78 `year`old grandmother needing urgent kidney dialysis. This
:17:38. > :17:41.woman it tries to get through because she has seven children in
:17:42. > :17:49.another town. She is desperate to contact them. No room today. You can
:17:50. > :17:58.sense of frustration building here. Back in town the queues for fuel and
:17:59. > :18:04.water growing. This place was cut off so long that it is no surprise
:18:05. > :18:07.that things are desperate here. It is still a state of emergency and
:18:08. > :18:11.yet what is striking about this town is how quickly the community has
:18:12. > :18:19.come together again and started to get things done. People may not have
:18:20. > :18:25.insurance here, but they have phenomenal resilience. For now,
:18:26. > :18:30.Alfie and her brother are leaving to stay with relatives somewhere that
:18:31. > :18:43.safer inland. You get the sense this shattered town will recover from a
:18:44. > :18:47.storm of a lifetime. As the week progressed, international aid
:18:48. > :18:51.eventually arrived. In the interim, it was local institutions that had
:18:52. > :18:55.to fill in. Six out of ten Filipinos are Catholic. George has been
:18:56. > :19:03.assessing the role of the church in this disaster. A place for prayer is
:19:04. > :19:07.now in place for century. Typhoon Haiyan blew through the doors of
:19:08. > :19:12.this church and the parishioners walked in homeless. The pews where
:19:13. > :19:19.they once held to worship now the spaces they call home. The father is
:19:20. > :19:26.like the good Shepherd with his flock. He never doubted this is what
:19:27. > :19:36.he should do. The churches is for the poor. They are the sacraments.
:19:37. > :19:40.We have to save lives. Six days on, he has not seen any official aid
:19:41. > :19:42.here. He doesn't blame his parishioners for what many are
:19:43. > :19:51.describing as looting. For me, or what they did was not immoral
:19:52. > :20:01.because that is a basic need. When they loot the groceries, it a want
:20:02. > :20:06.to live. It is not a sin. In all, there are more than 300 families
:20:07. > :20:11.here, that is nearly 2000 people. Unlike some of her neighbours, this
:20:12. > :20:18.woman's family, three generations of it, survived the typhoon intact.
:20:19. > :20:23.They described how they clung to each other on a roof. All around
:20:24. > :20:29.them there are families with similar stories. She said she would take me
:20:30. > :20:37.to her home just a five`minute walk away. She had lived in the house for
:20:38. > :20:45.20 years and in the area for more than double that. So your house is
:20:46. > :20:55.just behind the big house that is standing ? TRANSLATION: We felt all
:20:56. > :20:59.alone in its time after the water came in. We were asking but it
:21:00. > :21:06.seemed that nobody was around to help. We needed help with which
:21:07. > :21:15.Aldrin and our house. There were no doctors around and there was no
:21:16. > :21:20.food. `` needed help with Alec children and our house.
:21:21. > :21:34.Sunday Mass is going ahead, around them, the world is upside down. That
:21:35. > :21:36.is all from this special edition of Reporters. Goodbye for now.