The death toll from a super typhoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned Sunday, making it the country’s worst recorded natural disaster.

The death toll from a super typhoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned Sunday, making it the country's worst recorded natural disaster.

The horrifying estimates came as rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunami like waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.

Police said they had deployed special forces to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the United States announced it had responded to a Philippine government appeal and would send military help.

Witnesses reported that Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are becoming violent and looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk.

About 70 to 80 percent of the houses and structures along the typhoon's path were destroyed.

On the neighboring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people were killed in the small town of Baser.

He added another 2,000 were missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas to be hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometers an hour.

Dozens more people were confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600-kilometer (370-mile) stretch of islands through the central Philippines.