DHAKA: At least 100 people have reportedly been killed by Typhoon Haiyan in one city, according to a Philippine official.

Capt John Andrews, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority, said the bodies were lying in the streets of the city of Tacloban.

It may be days before the full extent of the storm damage is known.

The storm ripped apart buildings and triggered landslides when it hit the central Philippines on Friday.

Power and communication lines were also cut to some areas.

Officials had said more than 12 million people were at risk. Much of the region affected had already been struggling to recover from an earthquake last month.

The typhoon is expected to hit Vietnam over the weekend.

"We expect the level of destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan to be extensive and devastating, and sadly we fear that many lives will be lost," said Save the Children`s Philippines director Anna Lindenfors.

Typhoon shutdown

The storm made landfall on the Philippines shortly before dawn on Friday, bringing gusts that reached 379 km/h (235 mph), with waves as high as 15m (45ft), bringing up to 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in places.

Meteorologists had earlier warned that the storm could be as devastating as Typhoon Bopha in 2012, which ravaged parts of the southern Philippines and left at least 1,000 people dead.

Schools and offices were closed, while ferry services and local flights were suspended. Hospitals and soldiers were on stand-by for rescue and relief operations.

Haiyan raged across Leyte and Samar, turning roads into rivers, and battered Cebu city, the country`s second largest with a population of 2.5 million.

The eye of the storm - known locally as Yolanda - passed well to the south of the capital Manila, but the city still felt its force.

"The wind here is whistling. It`s so strong and the heavy downpours are continuing," Mai Zamora, from the charity World Vision, in Cebu, told the BBC.

"We`ve been hearing from my colleagues in [the city of] Tacloban that they`ve seen galvanised iron sheets flying just like kites."

Former BBC Manila correspondent Kate McGeown says that while reports are now coming in from some of the affected cities, there is still very little information from the countryside in large areas of the Visayas region such as Negros and Iloilo, and the island of Mindoro.

Typhoon Haiyan is now heading for Vietnam, as Darren Bett explains

There were reports of substantial damage even in areas that missed the worst of Haiyan, the 25th tropical storm to enter Philippine territory this year.

"The storm was very strong - although Surigao City was not directly hit we experienced its fury early this morning," said Protestant pastor Diosdado Casera in Surigao City in north-east Mindanao .

"The big buildings made of concrete were fine, but the houses made of wood and shingles and plywood have suffered a lot of damage, mainly to their roof."

Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the private firm Weather Underground, said in a blog post that the damage from Haiyan`s winds must have been "perhaps the greatest wind damage any city on Earth has endured from a tropical cyclone in the past century".

In its path were areas already struggling to recover from a deadly 7.3-magnitude earthquake last month, including the worst-hit island of Bohol where about 5,000 people are still living in tents.

Source: BBC
BDST:  0850 HRS, NOV 09, 2013
RS/BSK