sara b. may photography

Less than 48 hours after the typhoon's landfall, crowds have already begun to overrun the only airport on the island. 

In hopes of food and water, a crowd rushes towards the first helicopter to land in the area since the storm's landfall 60 hours previously. While the helicopter delivered a medical team and a box of body bags, it only carried scant amounts of food and water. 

A local man manages to secure a jug of water and an umbrella. 

In the hours following Typhoon Haiyan, two men fight over a torn, nearly empty bag of rice scavenged from a military helicopter that dropped off a medical team on a beach head outside of town. 

Within minutes of the medical team's arrival on the beach, a local midwife pleads urgently for help with a patient in town who has just given birth and is bleeding uncontrollably.

A woman distributes body bags to a crowd that gathered around the first helicopter to arrive in the area after the storm. 

Team members and local residents must navigate their way over fallen electrical lines and roads destroyed by the storm as they approach the town from the south.

As dusk falls, the team, led by Dr. Michael Karch and accompanied by residents anxious for medical care, hoists their gear on their backs and begins the nearly 2 mile hike into town.

On the road into Tanauan, a Pepsi truck lies overturned. A day later and still without food or fresh water, local residents enter the truck to find crates of unopened Pepsi bottles, which they share amongst the local population and the medical team. Some media outlets characterize this behavior as "looting", further discouraging relief organizations from extending their reach beyond the safety of Tacloban airport 15 miles to the north.

Dusk along the main road into Tanauan, 48 hours following the landfall of Typhoon Haiayan.

Following a sleepless night cleaning out the town hall, the team listens as Dr. Mike Karch discusses the plan for the clinic's 1st day of operation.

Water pours down the walls and through the roof of the team's makeshift OR, where stethoscopes and umbrellas share equal prominence in the care of patients. 

One of the first patients seen in clinic requires an emergency amputation of her right arm--team members use a battery-powered ultrasound machine to guide the injection of anesthetic into a collection of nerves, numbing the arm prior to surgery.

Tetanus boosters, basic wound care, and minor medical cases are managed by the local health care personnel on the ground floor of the town hall.

Following surgical treatment of a lower leg wound, a patient's head is shaded from the sun while her IV is removed. 

Break Room, Tanauan town hall. 

Team members collect rainwater which, after being filtered and treated with iodine, they then utilize for both patient care and as their primary source of drinking water.

The trajectory of storm debris swept in by the storm surge comes to rest against a police van at the town center. Most of the local police force was lost in the typhoon after police were deployed by state authorities during the storm to prevent looting.

By day 5, the queue of residents seeking information about the missing & dead outnumber those seeking medical care.

Corpses fill the town plaza's central walkway.

Corpses awaiting burial continue to accumulate under the ravaged roof of the amphitheatre in the town plaza, day 5 after the storm's landfall.

Tanauan town plaza.

David Page of Mammoth Medical Missions on his daily dawn patrol, 4 days after the team's arrival in Tanauan.

The sun rises over the town's recently cleared main street, where a bike taxi ferries passengers day 4 status post typhoon landfall.