"We've been telling the rest of the world we don't want what's happening to us to happen to everyone else," said Lucille L. Sering, the vice chair of the Philippines' Climate Commission,, as the country struggled to cope with the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. "This is your early warning system ... we will all eventually be victims of this phenomenon."
More than a week after the typhoon roared through the eastern Visayas, the number of people killed is still unknown. Ten thousand dead is the number being used in the media, but the area around Tacloban city alone may have lost that many. Many other parts of Samar and Leyte islands are still inaccessible to both media and aid workers.
Another reason the death toll remains unknown is that the victims are still dying in large numbers, and not all of them from infected wounds and other storm-related injuries. The chronically ill are dying because vital medicines and medical procedures like dialysis are unavailable. They will soon be joined by those who die of infectious diseases like dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever, which become epidemic about a week after sanitation services break down.