The death toll from Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines has increased to 5,500, with 1,757 people still missing, the national disaster relief agency said today.

Authorities said the number of confirmed fatalities could increase as more debris is cleared.

More than 3.5 million people were displaced by the typhoon, which slammed into the eastern Philippines with record winds of more than 300kph on Nov 8, destroying more than 1 million homes.

Damage to infrastructure and agriculture was estimated at more than 24.53 billion pesos (US$570.46 million), it added.

Amid reports that government could only provide emergency aid to survivors until December, the United Nations warned that the need for assistance was still huge.

“Life-saving needs persist in food, shelter, recovery of livelihoods and the restoration of essential community services in the affected areas,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said in its latest bulletin.

The group’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a renewed appeal for support to Philippine farmers.

“It would be a double tragedy if next spring farming families still needed to rely on continued humanitarian food assistance because we haven’t been able to support them as they recover,” FAO executive Dominique Burgeon said.

She called on the international community to donate US$11 million to clear land, clean canals and repair irrigation pumps, on top of the US$20 million FAO has already requested in
agricultural aid.

So far, the UN agency mobilized US$7 million from UN funds and donations from Belgium, Switzerland and Britain.

UNOCHA also stressed the need for greater planning “to ensure smooth transition as some international partners - including foreign militaries and international health teams - prepare to leave.”

The government has started to build bunkhouses as temporary shelters for survivors living in evacuation centres or in tents and makeshift shacks.

- dpa