ON THE GROUND: Devastating Pictures From The Philippines Super Typhoon

REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

Super Typhoon Haiyan, possibly the strongest storm to ever make landfall, ripped through the central Philippines on Friday and Saturday, killing at least 1,200 people, according to a preliminary estimate from the Red Cross.

Haiyan is now headed across the South China Sea toward Vietnam as a Category 3 storm, according to meteorologist Jeff Masters.

The powerful typhoon was packing 195 mph winds - equivalent to a category 5 hurricane - when it first hit.

More than one million people were forced to flee as the storm whipped through the Philippine archipelago, leaving behind a trail of destruction.

"The last time I saw something of this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami," Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, head of the U.N. Disaster Assessment Coordination Team told Reuters. "This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumbleweed and the streets are strewn with debris."