DHAKA: Mobs overran a rice warehouse on the island worst hit by the Philippine typhoon, setting off a wall collapse that killed eight people and carting off thousands of sacks of the grain, while security forces Wednesday exchanged gunfire with an armed gang.

The incidents in or close to the storm-ravaged city hosting international relief efforts add to concerns about the slow pace of aid distribution and that parts of the disaster zone are descending into chaos.

Five long days after typhoon ‘Haiyan’ wasted the eastern seaboard of the Philippines, the cogs of what promises to be a massive international aid effort are beginning to turn, but not quickly enough for the some 600,000 people displaced, many of them homeless, hungry and thirsty.

‘There’s a bit of a logjam to be absolutely honest getting stuff in here,’ said UN staffer Sebastian Rhodes Stampa against the roar of a C-130 transport plane landing behind him at the airstrip in Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit cities.

‘It’s almost all in country _ either in Manila or in Cebu, but it’s not here. We’re going to have a real challenge with logistics in terms of getting things out of here, into town, out of town, into the other areas,’ he said, reports The Times of India.

‘The reason for that essentially is that there are no trucks, the roads are all closed.’

BDST: 1829 HRS, NOV 13, 2013
RoR/BSK