Tacloban (DC): The death toll from one of the strongest storms on record that ravaged the central Philippine city of Tacloban caused by typhoon Haiyan jumped to 1,833, with the initial cost of damage increasing to $17.4 million, a government official confirmed on Wednesday.

The typhoon barreled through six central Philippine islands on Friday, wiping away buildings and leveling seaside homes. Most of the deaths and destruction were on Leyte Island, where Tacloban is located.

The typhoon weakened on Sunday as it approached central and northern Vietnam where authorities evacuated more than 500,000 people.

Eduardo del Rosario, is the executive director of the Philippines National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said, “As per the recent statistically records, the victims coming from Western Visayas reached up to 103, while the number of those who perished in Eastern Visayas remained at 1,660. Some 2,623 people were injured and 84 people are still missing.”

“A total of 1.387 million families or 6.937 million people were affected by Haiyan and out of them, 127,733 families or 582,303 persons were relocated, as served inside and outside evacuation centers”, the NDRRMC official said.

He also confirmed nearly 150,000 houses were either partially or totally damaged.

It was earlier noted by the agency’s chairman, Richard Gordon stating a very high number of fatalities as well as injured whereas Interior Secretary Mar Roxas also had said after visiting Tacloban on Saturday that all systems, all vestiges of modern living – communications, power, water – all are down. Media is down, so there is no way to communicate with the people in a mass sort of way.