TACLOBAN, Philippines — Typhoon-ravaged Philippine islands faced a daunting relief effort that had barely begun today, as bloated bodies lay uncollected and uncounted in the streets and survivors pleaded for food, water and medicine.

Police guarded stores to prevent people from hauling off food, water and such non-essentials as TVs and treadmills, but there was often no one to carry away the dead — not even those seen along the main road from the airport to Tacloban, the worst-hit city along the country’s remote eastern seaboard.

Two officials said Sunday that Friday’s typhoon may have killed 10,000 or more people, but with the slow pace of recovery, the official death toll remained well below that. The Philippine military confirmed 942 dead, but shattered communications, transportation links and local governments suggest the final toll is days away.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said “we pray” that the death toll is less than 10,000.

Tacloban resembled a garbage dump from the air, punctuated only by a few concrete buildings that remained standing.

“I don’t believe there is a single structure that is not destroyed or severely damaged in some way — every single building, every single house,” U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said after taking a helicopter flight over the city.

Authorities said at least 9.7 million people were affected by the typhoon. It’s one of the most powerful recorded typhoons to ever hit land and likely the deadliest natural disaster to beset this poor Southeast Asian nation.