Charities and emergency services have appealed for donations
\n SURIGAO CITY
\nThe death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year surged to 375 on Monday, the national police said, as desperate survivors pleaded for urgent supplies of drinking water and food.
\nAnother 500 were injured and 56 were missing in the latest disaster to hit the archipelago, the police tally showed.
\nThe storm tore off roofs, uprooted trees, toppled concrete power poles, smashed wooden houses to pieces, wiped out crops and flooded villages \u2014 sparking comparisons with Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
\n\u201cOur situation is so desperate,\u201d said Ferry Asuncion, a street vendor in the hard-hit seaside city of Surigao, which was devastated by the storm.
\nThey urgently needed \u201cdrinking water and food,\u201d he said.
\nOne of the hardest-hit islands was Bohol \u2014 known for its beaches, rolling \u201cChocolate Hills,\u201d and tiny tarsier primates \u2014 where at least 74 people have died, provincial Governor Arthur Yap said on his official Facebook page.
\nThere has also been widespread destruction on Siargao, Dinagat and Mindanao islands, which bore the brunt of the storm when it slammed into the country packing wind speeds of 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour.
\nAt least 10 people died on the Dinagat Islands, provincial information officer Jeffrey Crisostomo told AFP on Sunday.
\nS.O.S was painted on a road in the popular tourist town of General Luna on Siargao island, where surfers and holidaymakers had flocked ahead of Christmas, as people struggled to find water and food.
\nSwathes of the affected areas have no communications, hampering efforts by disaster agencies to assess the full extent of the storm\u2019s damage.
\nElectricity also has been knocked out, affecting water-refilling stations and ATMs.
\nSome victims expressed frustration at the government\u2019s response to the disaster.
\n\u201cNo one showed up \u2014 I don\u2019t know where the politicians and (election) candidates are,\u201d said a visibly angry Levi Lisondra, an elderly resident in Surigao City, on the northern tip of Mindanao.
\n\u201cWe paid big taxes when we were working and now they can\u2019t help us.\u201d
\nPresident Rodrigo Duterte visited some of the hardest-hit areas on Saturday and pledged to release two billion pesos ($40 million) to assist recovery efforts.
\nThousands of military, police, coast guard and fire personnel have been deployed to hard-hit areas.
\nCoast guard and naval vessels, as well as aircraft carrying food, water and medical supplies, have been dispatched, while heavy machinery \u2014 like backhoes and front-end loaders \u2014 have been sent to help clear roads blocked by fallen power poles and trees.
\nRai hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season \u2014 most cyclones typically develop between July and October.
\nScientists have long warned that typhoons are becoming more powerful and strengthening more rapidly as the world becomes warmer because of human-driven climate change.
\nThe Philippines \u2014 ranked among the globe\u2019s most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change \u2014 is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons every year, which typically wipe out harvests, homes and infrastructure in already impoverished areas.
\nTyphoon Haiyan, called Yolanda in the Philippines, was at the time the deadliest storm ever to have made landfall and left more than 7,300 people dead or missing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charities and emergency services have appealed for donations SURIGAO CITY The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year surged to 375 on Monday, the national police said, as desperate survivors pleaded for urgent supplies of drinking water and food. Another 500 were injured and 56 were missing in the latest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[1083,1874,1875],"class_list":{"0":"post-234066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-death","9":"tag-philippine","10":"tag-typhoon"},"yoast_head":"\n