[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English, this is In the News.
[00:09.37]The Philippine government is defending its efforts to get assistance to victims of Typhoon Haiyan.
[00:16.08]Many have received little or no assistance since the storm struck a week ago.
[00:22.24]Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said Friday in the city of Tacloban that the need is massive,
[00:30.20]immediate and not everyone can be reached.
[00:33.43]The aircraft carrier USS George Washington and other US Navy ships arrived in the Philippines this week to help with disaster relief operations.
[00:45.95]The ships brought helicopters and emergency aid.
[00:51.95]The Navy is deploying the helicopters to inspect damage from Typhoon Haiyan.
[00:58.19]The aircraft are also being used to transport supplies to affected communities.
[01:04.64]The aircraft carrier also has medical services and can produce 1.5 million liters of fresh water a day.
[01:14.68]The storm displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
[01:20.64]The country's chief of disaster relief said Friday that at least 3,600 people are known to have died.
[01:29.32]The amount of food and other aid sent to the Philippines has increased in recent days.
[01:36.66]But moving the aid from airports or other areas has been a slow process, in part because wreckage blocks many roads.
[01:47.16]Scientists say Typhoon Haiyan was one of the strongest storms on record ever to hit land.
[01:56.05]Some people wonder whether man-made climate change played a part in the typhoon.
[02:02.39]Bob Ward is with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics.
[02:10.11]"There's certainly strong circumstantial evidence because we know that the strength of tropical cyclones,
[02:18.82]hurricanes, typhoons, depends very much on sea surface temperatures.
[02:22.09]They act as the fuel.
[02:23.53]And we've got very warm waters in the Pacific at the moment,
[02:26.05]which have been increasing because of climate change,
[02:29.43]and those very warm waters are what powered this typhoon."
[02:33.31]Bob Ward says the intensity of storms seems to be increasing.
[02:38.39]"Our models are not very clear at the moment.
[02:41.63]But we might expect in the future that we might even see fewer,
[02:44.15]but those that do occur will be much stronger than we're experiencing now."
[02:48.31]Benedict Dempsey is with the aid group Save the Children.
[02:52.82]He says detailed weather predictions meant that some aid workers were already in place when the storm hit.
[03:01.13]"Half a dozen people went into the path of the storm
[03:03.73]in order to be prepared for the response in Tacloban and elsewhere in the Philippines."
[03:08.55]He says aid agencies are learning to prepare for natural disasters of this kind.
[03:14.69]"Between around 2002 and 2011, on average over 260 million people a year are being affected by disasters.
[03:22.25]And so we're seeing the reality of these trends acting out on the ground,
[03:26.21]and it's absolutely something that we're having to prepare to respond to in the future."
[03:30.63]Benny Peiser is director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
[03:35.55]His group questions whether human activities are to blame for rising temperatures.
[03:41.86]He says people should be concerned about disaster preparation instead of cutting gases linked to climate change.
[03:52.57]"This was the 20th tropical storm to have hit the Philippines this year.
[03:56.48]So this is going to continue no matter what we decide on CO2, these storms will continue."
[04:04.28]Climate change talks are taking place in Warsaw, Poland.
[04:08.54]At the talks, the Philippine representative appealed for an agreement to cut industrial gases like carbon dioxide.
[04:17.90]Scientist Bob Ward says the delegates should pay close attention.
[04:23.91]"I think this typhoon will focus minds very much on the fact that if we squabble and delay in getting an agreement,
[04:32.09]we're going to see more and more of these kind of events with very, very severe human costs."
[04:37.86]But observers at the Warsaw talks say a deal on cutting greenhouse gases still appears to be far away.
[04:46.63]And that's In the News, from VOA Learning English.
[04:52.37]I'm Bob Doughty.