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Survivors walk through the ruins of their neighborhood on the outskirts of Tacloban, Philippines, on Wednesday, November 13. Haiyan, one of the strongest storms in recorded history, decimated parts of the Philippines over the weekend. President Benigno Aquino III said the typhoon may have killed as many as 2,500 people.

A man sits in front of his destroyed business on November 13 in Tacloban.

On November 13, a family tries to use a ceiling fan to generate electricity, desperate to charge mobile phones to search for family and friends in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan in Cebu province.

An injured man rests beneath a picture of Jesus Christ in Tacloban on November 13.

A man takes a shower amid rubble in Tacloban on November 13.

A rescue team wades into floodwater to retrieve a body in Tacloban on November 13.

Residents take shelter in a Tacloban church on November 13 in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

Residents make their way through a destroyed neighborhood in Tacloban on November 13.

A man sits in front of his destroyed business in Tacloban on November 13.

A boy cycles past a coffin left on a street in Tacloban on November 13.

A man looks at his home destroyed by Typhoon Hayian in Tacloban on November 13.

Body bags are lined up in the typhoon's aftermath in Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit cities, on November 13.

Survivors prepare to board a military plane November 13 at the airport in Tacloban.

An aerial view shows signs pleading for help and food scrawled on a road in the coastal town of Tanauan on November 13.

Soldiers help a woman after she collapsed while waiting in line to board a military plane at Tacloban's airport November 13.

Survivors wait to be evacuated from Tacloban on November 13.

An injured survivor gets carried on a stretcher before being airlifted from Tacloban's airport November 13.

A survivor begins to rebuild his house in Tacloban on November 13.

Evacuees wait to board a military aircraft in Leyte on Tuesday, November 12.

People walk through damage in Tacloban on November 12.

A young man waits at the airport November 12 in hopes of being evacuated from Tacloban.

A woman comforts a crying relative as a plane leaves the Tacloban airport November 12.

A man sits crying on a packed aircraft in Tacloban on November 12.

Debris lays scattered around a damaged home near the Tacloban airport on November 12.

A girl sits inside a bus as she waits for a ferry in Matnog, Philippines, on November 12.

Residents carry bags of rice from a Tacloban warehouse that they stormed November 11 because of a food shortage.

Survivors in Tacloban board a military plane bound for the Philippine capital of Manila on November 11.

Police line up bodies for processing in Tacloban on November 12.

People in Tacloban pass debris on November 11.

A woman in Tacloban walks amid the debris of destroyed houses on November 11.

People make their way across a flooded street in Shangsi, China, on November 11. Haiyan moved toward Vietnam and south China after devastating the Philippines.

Buildings lie in ruins on Eastern Samar's Victory Island.

Emily Ortega rests on November 11 after giving birth to Bea Joy at an improvised clinic at the Tacloban airport.

U.S. Marine Corps Osprey aircraft arrive at Manila's Villamor Airbase to deliver humanitarian aid on November 11.

People ride past destruction in Tacloban on Sunday, November 10.

A body lies amid the Tacloban devastation on November 10.

People cover their noses to block the smell of bodies in Tacloban on November 10.

Bodies of victims lie along a Tacloban road on November 10.

A large boat sits aground, surrounded by debris in Tacloban on November 10.

People walk past the Tacloban devastation on November 10.

People stand under a shelter in Tacloban.

A girl peeks out from a makeshift shelter in Tacloban.

Typhoon survivors wait to receive relief goods at the Tacloban airport on November 10.

A woman mourns in front of her husband's dead body November 10 in Tacloban.

Fallen trees litter the ground at the Tacloban airport on Saturday, November 9.

A resident passes victims' bodies on a Tacloban street November 9.

People in Tacloban carry a victim of the typhoon November 9.

A vehicle lies amid Tacloban debris on November 9.

People walk past a victim left on the side of a road in Tacloban.

A resident passes an overturned car in Tacloban on November 9.

Rescue workers carry a woman about to give birth November 9 at a makeshift medical center at the Tacloban airport.

An airport lies in ruins in Tacloban.

Astronaut Karen L. Nyberg took a picture of the typhoon from the International Space Station on November 9.

Women walk past fallen trees and destroyed houses in Tacloban on November 9. Residents scoured supermarkets for water and food as they slowly emerged on streets littered with debris.

A soldier pulls a cable inside the devastated airport tower in Tacloban.

Tacloban houses are destroyed by the strong winds caused by the typhoon.

Dark clouds brought by Haiyan loom over Manila skyscrapers on November 8.

A woman carries a baby across a river November 8 at a coastal village in Las Pinas, Philippines.

A resident walks along a fishing village in Bacoor, Philippines, on November 8.

A house in Legazpi, Philippines, is engulfed by storm surge November 8.

A child wraps himself in a blanket inside a makeshift house along a Bacoor fishing village.

A woman and her children head for an evacuation center November 8 amid strong winds in Cebu City, Philippines.

Huge waves from Haiyan hit the shoreline in Legazpi on November 8.

A fisherman lifts a post to reinforce his home at a coastal village in Las Pinas on November 8.

A resident unloads nets off a fishing boat in Bacoor on November 8.

Residents reinforce their homes in Las Pinas on November 8.

The storm approaches the Philippines in this satellite image taken Thursday, November 7, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Workers bring down a billboard in Makati, Philippines, on November 7 before Haiyan makes landfall.

Philippine Coast Guard personnel stand in formation beside newly acquired rubber boats after a blessing ceremony in Manila on Wednesday, November 6. The boats were to be deployed to the central Philippines in preparation for Haiyan.

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Tacloban, Philippines (CNN) -- Much-needed relief arrived in the Philippines on Thursday, when two U.S. Navy ships sailed in to help hundreds of thousands who have gone without food and clean water for nearly a week.

The destroyers USS Lassen and USS Mustin led the way for a mammoth aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, which has 80 aircraft and 5,000 sailors to distribute food, water and medicine, the Navy said.

A nearly 700-foot supply ship is not far behind.

The Navy cut the sailors' shore leave short to send them on the relief mission to the area ripped apart last Friday by one of the strongest cyclones on record, Typhoon Haiyan.

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Clinic in Tacloban overflowing

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Its winds, 3.5 times as strong as those of hurricane Katrina, pushed in a wall of water about 15 feet high, washing away towns on many islands in the south of the country.

By Thursday morning, the official death toll had climbed to 2,357. More than 3,800 were injured and about 77 are still missing.

The sailors arrive to a scene of desolation, where help comes too late for many, and international aid has piled up at airports, blocked from distribution to the starving by miles of debris piled up on roads to hard-hit areas.

It is taking a long time to clear them and to establish communications in to remote areas, said Philippine Interior Minister Mar Roxas.

"Imagine a situation where from zero, from zero, no power, light, water, communication, nothing, you have to build the social infrastructures as well as the physical infrastructures for 275,000."

Only 20 trucks are operating and they are overloaded with tasks, he said. Half are delivering food; half are clearing roads and removing dead bodies that have been lying around since the storm hit.

He led a cadaver recovery team himself on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said.

The danger of violence also looms over the relief efforts.

Police warned a CNN crew to turn back Wednesday on the road south of Tacloban, saying rebels had been shooting at civilians.

"Maybe they are looking for food," a police commander said.

Though progress is slow, Roxas feels it is doubling by the day.

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That could still be too slow for the wounded and the sick, who have crowded into hospitals barely able to operate, hardly supplied and often without electricity.

In Tacloban, which may have seen the worst destruction, the cries of the suffering echoed through a small, cramped one-story clinic, where the medicine was all but gone Thursday. But patients keep pouring in.

The clinic at the airport in the decimated capital city of Leyte province is one of the few places where the injured can turn for help, but not much of it is to be found.

"We don't have any medicines. We don't have any supplies. We have IVs, but it's running out," Dr. Katrina Catabay told CNN.

"Most of the people don't have water and food. That's why they come here. Most of the kids are dehydrated. They are suffering from diarrhea and vomiting."

While relief organizations say they have been able to deliver some of the stockpiles of aid to some victims, many CNN crews reported seeing little sign of any large-scale organized relief effort in the hardest-hit areas.

The desperation is increasing, and becoming more serious.

"We mostly need food and water, that's the most important," Catabay said. "We need supplies."

At the clinic, a Philippine military officer called names off a clipboard, the names of those who will be airlifted out of the city.

"The elderly, the children that are sick" are the priority, the officer said.

For at least one man, the evacuation came too late.

The man died at the clinic. His body was put on a gurney and pushed to the end of a hallway because there is nowhere to put him, the clinic staff said.

Faces of the storm

Death toll climbs

By Thursday morning, the official death toll had climbed to 2,357, disaster officials said. The typhoon left 3,853 people injured and 77 people missing, according to the Philippines' National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

The toll is "going to be horrific," Philippine Interior Minister Mar Roxas said.

"There are still many towns that have not sent in complete reports and out of the 40 towns of Leyte, for example, only 20 have been contacted. So there's another 20 towns with no communication," he said.

"It's going to be a high death toll. I don't want to go into just throwing out numbers."

Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has said that he expected the final number would likely be around 2,000 to 2,500.

Scenes of devastation, calls for help

"Pushing aid" to Tacloban

Some relief crews are circumventing the blocked roads, wastelands of debris and the danger of crime by flying over it, delivering aid by air into devastated areas.

U.S. Marines arrived Wednesday in Cebu, transforming the sleepy airbase there into a buzzing center of activity as cargo aircraft, tilt-rotor Ospreys and camouflaged Marines.

Two 747 airplanes loaded with humanitarian aid from the United States have arrived, and Marines are "pushing aid" from Cebu to Tacloban, Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy said on CNN's "Situation Room."

But they land to find themselves hemmed in by debris.

"Some of those neighborhoods are inundated with water, and some of it's inaccessible," Kennedy said. Marines will need heavy machinery to clear the rubble, and getting it in won't be easy.

"It's a matter of capacity at this point. This just doesn't come out of a box. It has to be moved down here. It's a remote location," he said.

The Royal Australian Air Force also landed at Cebu, delivering a portable field hospital that was soon sent on its way to Tacloban. Taiwanese troops also arrived with medical aid, and Doctors Without Borders said three of nine cargo shipments it has planned also arrived in Cebu on Wednesday.

The planes carried medical supplies, shelter materials, hygiene kits and other gear, the agency said.

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U.N.: Pace of relief lacking

Teams from Doctors Without Borders also have reached remote Guiuan, a village of about 45,000 that was among the first areas hit by the full force of the storm, the agency said.

"The situation here is bleak," said Alexis Moens, the aid group's assessment team leader. "The village has been flattened -- houses, medical facilities, rice fields, fishing boats all destroyed. People are living out in the open; there are no roofs left standing in the whole of Guiuan. The needs are immense and there are a lot of surrounding villages that are not yet covered by any aid organizations."

But the uptick in aid delivered to the Philippines from abroad coincides with the opening of a road into Tacloban, holding out the promise that food, water and medicine will begin to flow more quickly.

But six days after the storm struck -- with more than 2 million people in need of food, according to the Philippine government -- even U.N. relief coordinator Valerie Amos acknowledged the pace of aid is still lagging.

"This is a major operation that we have to mount," she said Wednesday. "We're getting there. But in my view it's far too slow."

Philippine President Aquino has defended relief efforts, citing the challenges posed by the devastation.

Above all, he said, the intensity of the storm took everyone by surprise.

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CNN's Anderson Cooper reported from Tacloban, and Ben Brumfield and Chelsea J. Carter reported and wrote from Atlanta. Anna Coren contributed from Cebu; CNN's Paula Hancocks and Andrew Stevens contributed from Tacloban, and Ivan Watson contributed from Cebu.