The official death toll in the Philippines from one of the world’s strongest typhoons rose to 1,833, the national disaster relief agency said on Wednesday, with many towns still unaccounted for.
The country’s President, Benigno Aquino, said he believed the final number of dead could be between 2,000 and 2,500.
Nearly 1,500 of the victims were from the provinces of Leyte and Samar, where Typhoon Haiyan triggered tsunami-like waves that flattened cities and towns and displaced nearly 600,000 people.
At least 2,623 people were injured in the storm which hit the Philippines on Friday, the disaster relief agency said.
Local authorities in Leyte had feared that more than 10,000 had died, but President Benigno Aquino told a US broadcaster that this estimate was “too much.”
“We’re hoping to be able to contact something like 29 municipalities left wherein we still have to establish their numbers, especially for the missing,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“But so far 2,000, about 2,500, is the number we are working on as far as deaths are concerned,” he said.
Nearly 7 million people were affected by Haiyan, which ripped apart houses with record winds of up to 315 kilometres per hour.
Further international aid was due to arrive in the Philippines later on Wednesday, including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and other US Navy ships that had set-off from from Japan.
US President Barack Obama said he had telephoned Aquino on Tuesday to say the United States would deliver “whatever help we can” to the Philippines to help it recover from Typhoon Haiyan.