TACLOBAN (Philippines), Nov 10: The death toll from a super-typhoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned on Sunday, making it the country`s worst natural disaster.

The horrifying estimates came as rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunamilike waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.

Hundreds of police and soldiers were deployed to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the United States announced it had responded to a Philippine government appeal and was sending military help.

`Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families,` high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, said, as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

`People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk... I am afraid that in one week, people will be killing from hunger.

Authorities were struggling to even understand the sheer magnitude of the disaster, let alone react to it, with the regional police chief for Leyte saying 10,000 people were believed to have died in that province alone.

`We had a meeting last night with the governor and, based on the government`s estimates, initially there are 10,000 casualties (dead), Chief Superintendent Elmer Soria told reporters in Tacloban. `About 70 to 80 per cent of the houses and structures along the typhoon`s path were destroyed.

On the neighbouring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people were killed in the small town of Basey.

He added that another 2,000 were missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas to be hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometres an hour.

Dozens more people were confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600kilometre stretch of islands through the central Philippines.

Deadliest natural disaster The Philippines endures a seemingly neverending pattern of deadly typhoons,earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters.

This is because it is located along a typhoon belt and the socalled Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth`s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. However, if the feared death toll of above 10,000 is correct, Haiyan would be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the country.-AFP