The scale of the disaster continued to unfold as more remote areas were surveyed, with aerial photos of Samar island, where Haiyan first made landfall, showing whole districts of coastal towns reduced to piles of splintered wood.
Haiyan's sustained winds when it hit Samar reached 315 kilometres (195 miles) an hour, making it the strongest typhoon in the world this year and one of the most powerful ever recorded.
US marines shocked at devastation
In Tacloban, dozens of American marines arrived on Monday aboard two US military C-130 transport planes packed with relief supplies. They expressed shock after receiving a bird's eye view of the carnage.
"Roads are impassable, trees are all down, posts are down, power is down.... I am not sure how else to describe this destruction," Brigadier General Paul Kennedy, the commanding general of the Okinawa-based 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, told reporters.
The Marine Corps said another 90 troops were on their way, tasked with conducting a humanitarian assistance survey.