Britons arrive with hope for Typhoon Haiyan victims

Millions of victims of Typhoon Haiyan had their first real glimmer of hope on Saturday as international aid finally started to reach isolated areas and the first British military relief efforts arrived.

A Royal Air Force C-17 transporter touched down at an airbase on the island of Cebu, carrying two JCB diggers, two Land Rovers and heavy lifting equipment for sifting through the wreckage. Meanwhile, aid flown into the city of Tacloban on the neighbouring island of Leyte finally began trickling into ravaged neighbourhoods, some of which have gone for nine days without assistance.

David Cameron announced that British aid to victims of Typhoon Haiyan would more than double, with the UK adding pounds 30 million to the pounds 20 million already pledged to the disaster. Today, the British warship HMS Daring is also arriving in the region to join the UN-led relief operation in Cebu, bringing rescue teams, water purification equipment, and a Lynx helicopter that has already conducted aerial surveys of areas still incommunicado since the storm. It will give much-needed additional capability to a foreign aid effort that has yet to penetrate some of the worst-affected outlying islands.

But with many areas still cut off from help by the sheer scale of the destruction, the extent of the challenge is clear. More than a week after the strongest-ever recorded typhoon tore through the region, The Sunday Telegraph has witnessed first-hand a struggle to survive in some of the far-flung islands of the Philippines archipelago. Bereft of outside help, ordinary Filipinos have had to rely on relatives and volunteers to ferry food to them from neighbouring islands. Last night, William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, said that a number of British nationals were missing in the wake of the storm.

Mr Hague made the disclosure after telephoning Albert Ferreros del Rosario, Philippines Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to offer condolences for the loss of life in Typhoon Haiyan. "The foreign secretary confirmed that a number of British nationals remained unaccounted for," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "He asked that every possible assistance be given to any British people caught up in the disaster." Among the missing Britons was Colin Bembridge, 61, from Grimsby, who was said to have been with his Filipino partner, Maybelle, and their young daughter in the town of San Jose, just outside Tacloban, when the typhoon hit. His daughter, Joanne Bembridge, said: "My dad, Maybelle and Victoria are still missing - please speak to everyone you know to help find them.

They were last seen in a house on BayBay, San Jose, Tacloban, Philippines, we believe they were near to the Mayor's building. But there are unconfirmed reports they were washed away." Speaking at a press conference in Sri Lanka, Mr Cameron said the "huge scale" of the Philippines disaster was "becoming clearer every day". "Over 3,600 dead, nearly 10 million people affected, and they are going to need sustained help from the international community as they start to rebuild their lives," the Prime Minister said. "I'm proud … that the UK has taken the lead in international relief."

The RAF C17 that arrived in Cebu will be followed by the deployment of an RAF Hercules to help carry aid workers to areas that have so far been difficult to reach. When HMS Daring leaves, the light aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, carrying seven helicopters, will follow. A 12-strong team of British doctors, surgeons and paramedics are already helping to treat survivors of the typhoon. British Airways, meanwhile, is offering aid agencies including Oxfam, Save the Children and Unicef an aircraft to fly emergency aid and supplies to the disaster zone. The Boeing 747 freighter, which has a capacity for up to 120 tonnes of cargo, is scheduled to leave from Stansted Airport in Essex tomorrow. Asif Ahmad, the British ambassador to the Philippines, was at Mactan Air Base in Cebu to meet the RAF C-17. "The significance of this load is that it is heavy machinery: bulldozers, Land Rovers, machines that can actually push through the debris that is blocking aid now," he said.

"This is vital … because the Philippine military and others have not been able to bring this material here." He added, however, that the country had to be better prepared for future natural disasters, given its position in an area with up to 20 typhoons a year and regular earthquakes. "The broader issues are to talk to the Philippine government about more work on disaster preparedness, and more on the way the military is tasked and resourced," he said. "If the military is to be an effective arm of rescue and relief … this really has to become business as usual, not crisis mode." In Tacloban, there was the sound of drills, hammers and spades at work as locals began rebuilding their homes. Helicopters clustered around the city's airport also began to drop aid in remote islands around the provinces of Leyte and Samar, but rescue efforts for the islands further to the west, particularly Bantaya, were still lagging behind, even though the typhoon's path of devastation there was equally brutal. Before the typhoon, Bantaya's remoteness and serene beauty attracted tens of thousands of visitors a year. A guesthouse industry sprung up and dive shops catered to Western tourists. A small community of expatriates enjoyed the attractions of the Asian way of life. But the destruction has left the island reeling. "There's nothing left here," said John Chivers, a former Londoner who lives on the island with his wife, Narcissa.

"We've been ruined and nobody is helping us. We're living like pigs in a sty just trying to get by day to day." So far, however, Filipinos in Bantaya have had to rely on a culture that has proven remarkably resilient in facing the blight of storms and earthquakes that affects the 7,000-strong island chain. The Sunday Telegraph witnessed the devastation on Bantaya, where up to 95 per cent of homes were destroyed in the storm. Only a few structures were left untouched as the maelstrom blew away its wood and tin shacks. More than a week later the landscape is a broken vista of uprooted coconut trees and building debris. One survivor, Keith Jan Tegjano, has become a human lifeline for the island's northern town, Madridejos. After the typhoon struck, Mr Tejano travelled to the island without knowing if his grandparents, Epitacio and Hydrea Figuaracio, were dead or alive. They turned out to have survived, despite winds as high as 195 mph. Like their neighbours, the couple have since sheltered under sheets of tin set against the remaining wall of their home. In the absence of foreign aid, the Figuaracios and their friends rely on Keith, a 21-year-old marine engineering student, to make a supply trip every day by ferry to the neighbouring island of Cebu. The journey there and back takes 12 hours, far longer than in normal times.

Mr Tejano yesterday stood over a handful of boxes stuffed with everyday shopping goods - rice, flour, noodles and toilet paper - amid the chaos of the island ferry. "It's relief for my grandparents and their neighbours," he said. "There is nothing where they live. I leave in the morning and come back at night with as much as I can carry." With the help of newly-forged contacts, Mr Tegjano has secured payments from the official rescue fund. "I am trying very hard to get as much as I can but even with my friends and the help of the government I can't afford to hire a car," he said. "I can only carry four or five boxes at a time to take home to Madridejos." At the end of last week, Mr Tejano shared the ferry with dozens of middle-class Filipinos who had filled pick-up trucks and small lorries with goods in a spontaneous effort to supply Bantaya's homeless. Dozens of the volunteers, some wearing T-shirts with corporate logos or the livery of private Philippine charities have flocked to Bantaya on the ferry from Cebu. Once disembarked, the volunteers formed human chains to pass boxes along the ferry pier. Mr Tegjano has also enlisted support from fellow students at Cebu university. A T-shirt he has had printed bears a social media slogan: "pounds Bangon (meaning Stand-Up in the Tagalog language) for Madridejos." Meanwhile, Ramon Boyts, a Cebu businessman, decided to use his own fortune to step in where the government relief agencies, both domestic and foreign, had so far failed. "It is so doubly bad to be left homeless and ruined on an island. Look out from the ferry pier. There is electricity here but the rest of the island is in darkness," he said.

"It's been a week. People will start to die if they are forced to live like this much longer." The line of street lights glaring at the ferry port contrasted sharply with the black twilight enshrouding the area beyond. Only rarely was the darkness punctuated by the glow of candles, where families would be huddled in wreckage. Anthony Estilo, the head of a displaced family, last week approached Shelterbox, the first foreign charity to visit Bantaya to survey its needs. Mr Estilo wants housing for himself, his pregnant wife and eight other children. "The family needs a tent to keep eight children and a pregnant wife safe," explained Lina Elsochristo, a friend of Mr Estilo. "Otherwise it is dangerous as well as unhealthy." Shelterbox is a Cornwall-based charity that prides itself on being among the first to respond to natural disasters in far-flung and hard-to-reach places. As a result, it has an almost permanent presence in the Philippines. The charity is to ship 800 of its boxes to Bantaya in the next week. If Mr Estilo's pleas are heeded, he will be the first to receive the Shelterbox gift, consisting of a tent, cooking utensils and a washbasin. "We are ready to go with supplies to people on the ground so that they can get ready to construct their new homes," said the leader of the Shelterbox team, Ian Neal. "We want to make sure we can get people settled as soon as we can."