Super Typhoon Haiyan tore bodies from their graves in town of Hernani

Skulls rest on tombstones and a hand reaches out from a grave at a cemetery in the eastern Philippines, after a typhoon so powerful it pulled the dead from the earth.

Shell-shocked survivors speak of how there was nowhere to hide when Super Typhoon Haiyan brought the ocean surging ashore, sweeping through a school where children and the elderly cowered.

The storm killed at least 75 people in the small rural town of Hernani. Another 45 are missing.

And like something from a nightmare, the surge was so powerful it washed bodies from graves as it swept over the local cemetery. Those who survived the onslaught were horrified to discover the graveyard in ruins.

"It was a hair-raising sight. Some of the dead were sticking halfway out of their tombs. Others were strewn across the street," said Claire Gregorio, an aid worker from the nearby Catholic diocese of Borongan.

"The water came in and just swept everything away," said Gregorio, one of the first aid responders to reach Hernani, pointing to the ocean about 700 metres away and hidden by a strip of now-dead mangrove forest.