Tacloban (Philippines) (AFP) - One of the most powerful typhoons in history is believed to have killed 1,200 people in the Philippines, the Red Cross said Saturday, as rescue workers raced to reach towns devastated by tsunami-like waves. A day after Super Typhoon Haiyan whipped across the central Philippines with maximum sustained winds of around 315 kilometres (195 miles) an hour, a cataclysmic picture emerged of entire communities having been flattened. "Imagine a strip one kilometre deep inland from the shore, and all the shanties, everything, destroyed," Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said after visiting coastal towns in Leyte, one of the worst-hit provinces in the east of the archipelago. Philippine Red Cross secretary general Gwendolyn Pang said her organisation estimated 1,200 people had died, while a UN official who visited Leyte described apocalyptic scenes.