Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines and caused huge waves sweeping away entire coastal villages and devastating the region's main city, a senior police official told Reuters on Sunday.

The super typhoon destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through the central province of Leyte on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria.

“As rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged villages along the coast, where the death toll is as yet unknown, survivors foraged for food as supplies dwindled or searched for lost loved ones,” Reuters quoted a local official as saying.

The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 killed by a storm whose sustained winds reached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph.