"I don't want to see it," she said tearfully. "I can't accept that in just an instant I lost my mother, my father, my brother."

She said that at the height of the typhoon, her mother was able to send her a text message saying trees were falling on their house and its roof had been blown away.

Maniquiz said her family sought refuge at a nearby health center, but it was destroyed and they and dozens of others were swept away by the raging waters.

"We are not hopeful that they are still alive. We just want to find their bodies so that we will have closure," she said.

The Associated Press

A woman asks for food and other relief supplies from motorists along a road in Osmena town, Compostela Valley in southern Philippines Dec 9, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]