Philippines Typhoon 2013: Officials Fear More Than 10,000 Dead in Typhoon Haiyan; More Deaths Expected as Super Typhoon Nears Vietnam and China

Philippines Typhoon 2013: Typhoon Haiyan may have claimed 10,000 lives in the Philippines, officials said after looking at the massive devastation of one of the strongest storms on record. Philippine authorities said there is a mass burial planned today in Palo, a town near Tacloban.

Typhoon Haiyan is one of the most powerful storms ever recorded and is forecast to hit Vietnam early Monday morning. Hundreds, if not thousands more deaths, are feared from neighboring islands. The full impact of the storm won't be known for days.

Super Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the central islands of the Philippines and officials fear as many as 10,000 people may be dead in one city alone. Tacloban city administrator Tecson Lim said that the death toll in the city "could go up to 10,000."

On late Saturday Elmer Soria, a regional police chief was briefed by Leyte provincial Gov. Dominic Petilla and told there were about 10,000 deaths on the island. Mosts of the deaths were caused by drowning and from collapsed buildings. Typhoon Haiyan caused sea waters to rise 20 feet when it hit on Friday. The death figure is based on reports from officials in villages where Typhoon Haiyan landed.

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas visited Tacloban and said a massive rescue operation was underway, "We expect a very high number of fatalities as well as injured."

Officials confirmed that 300 people are confirmed dead and 2,000 are missing in the town of Basey on Samar Island, which faces Tacloban.

Some towns on the island of Samar that have not been reached by authorities who are appealing for food and water.

Typhoon Haiyan knocked out power to much of the island and there was no cellphone signal. Communications are only possible by radio.

President Benigno Aquino III surveyed the damage on Leyte by helicopter. Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Aquino was "speechless." Aquino landed in Tacloban to see the effects firsthand. The president said the government's priority was to restore power and communications in isolated areas and to get relief and medical assistance to victims.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said he told President Aquino "all systems are down. There is no power, no water, nothing. People are desperate. They're looting."

Typhoon Haiyan will b the deadliest natural catastrophe on record in the Philippines if the estimates are correct. Before typhoon Haiyan, Tropical Storm Thelma killed around 5,100 people in the central Philippines November 1991. The deadliest natural disaster in the Philippines was the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in 1976 that caused tsunami that killed 5,791 people in the Moro Gulf in the southern Philippines.