Aid groups sending teams to help Typhoon Haiyan victims in the Philippines

Humanitarian agencies are deploying teams to the Philippines to provide recovery and relief in the wake of devastation caused by Super Typhoon Haiyan.

The typhoon, the fourth to hit the Philippines this year, swept across the country on Friday with wind gusts of 170 mph and storm surges of 20 feet. According to reports from the United Nations, an estimated 9.5 million people have been affected, or about 9% of the population, with 10,000 presumed dead.

Power and communications were knocked out in many areas, hospitals and homes destroyed, and transportation rendered nearly impossible to certain remote areas. The need for assistance is further exacerbated because the islands are still recovering from an Oct. 15 earthquake that has resources in the region already stretched thin.

“Based on our initial conversations with the United Nations and other colleagues on the ground, we anticipate the most pressing needs to be clean water, sanitation, temporary shelter and food,” Michael Bowers, director of strategic response and global emergencies for humanitarian agency Mercy Corps, said in a release. The organization—which has mobilized responders during similar global disasters, like the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan—is sending a team that includes experts in water, sanitation and logistics.

The International Medical Corps also has an emergency response team dispatched to the Philippines to provide food, water and medicines, while ensuring sanitation, hygiene and infection control.

“Now is the stage of impact mitigation to save lives—to keep those already healthy, healthy, and to attend to people in distress,” Noel Miranda, the group's Emergency Response Team leader in the Philippines, said in a release. Miranda previously led a pandemic preparedness initiative in Asia and Africa for the group, which is traditionally a first-responder to global disasters.

UNICEF is also sending supplies—$1.3 million worth of water purification tablets, soap, medical kits, tarps and micronutrient supplements—to help families, and particularly children.

“As we get a better picture of the impact of this devastating crisis, it is clear that even more children are affected than first thought,” UNICEF Philippines Representative Tomoo Hozumi said in a news release that estimated 4 million youth may be affected by the disaster. “UNICEF is doing all it can to reach these children, as quickly as possible with critical supplies, to protect their health, safety and well-being in the difficult days ahead.”

That focus on health was echoed by the Registered Nurse Response Network, part of the union National Nurses United, which sent out a request over the weekend for donations and volunteers. Within five hours of soliciting for help, the network had signed up 370 registered nurses to provide care to victims in the Philippines.

The organization, under a decade old, is one of the younger groups to send volunteers to the region. However, the national group is perhaps well-suited to this disaster—it was established in response to the South Asian tsunami in 2004.

Nurses, especially ones who speak the local language of Tagalog, can continue to sign up on the group's website to offer their assistance.

Follow Rachel Landen on Twitter: @MHrlanden