The United Nations said Friday the death toll from super typhoonYolanda was at least 4,460.

The United Nations said Friday the death toll from super typhoon Yolanda was at least 4,460, citing regional officials, but the national disaster council maintained a much lower figure. Views from above. The United Nations and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration released satellite images of Tacloban City showing the man-made structures destroyed by Super Typhoon Yolanda.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the number of 4,460 was given from the regional task force of the Philippines’ National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council on Wednesday. But NDRMMC’s spokesman Reynaldo Balido insisted the official toll from the typhoon that ripped through the central Philippines on Nov. 8 remained at 2,360.

“As of 13 November, the government reported that 4,460 people have died,”an OCHA statement said. Asked for the source of the figures, Manila-based OCHA spokeswoman Orla Fagan said: “We are getting it from the operations center of the regional task force set up by the NDRMMC.” When asked about the UN’s statement: Balido replied: “Not true.” Then he repeated the NDRMMC’s published figure.

But the executive director of the NDRMMC, Eduardo del Rosario, pegged the death toll at 3,621and said counts forwarded by local government units still had to be validated. Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas II, on the other hand, said the toll had reached 2,600 or more by Thursday night, quoting the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD).

President Benigno Aquino III said on Tuesday that he estimated the final death toll would be around 2,500. The Palace on Friday denied that a regional police chief was sacked over his early estimate of 10,000 deaths. Deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte said Chief Supt. Elmer Soria was relieved because “he has been through so much stress.” “The chief of the PNP decided to relieve him because, apparently, that particular police officer has been through so much stress and he also needs some rest,” Valte added.

A day after the super typhoon battered the Visayas region on Nov. 8, Soria said he received information that there were 10,000 deaths in Leyte. Soria has been replaced as regional director by Chief Supt. Henry Losanes. Like the NDRRMC, the Palace disputed the UN report of 4,460 deaths. “I am unaware of the source of the UN figure,” Valte said.