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Filipino-Americans Anxiously Await Word About Loved Ones

Area Restaurant Holds Typhoon-Relief Event

(CBS) – Members of Chicago's Filipino-American community continue to worry about their relatives back home following a devastating typhoon.

Communications are still down throughout the Philippines. It is still impossible to tell how many people are dead.

Authorities fear the final number will be 10,000 or more.

Caring for the living is a challenge. Survivors are desperate for food and medicine; shelters are overflowing with humanity.

In Des Plaines on Monday, Filipino-Americans gathered at Allegretti's restaurant to donate cash for typhoon relief. Among the guests were two men from the Tacloban area.

"We don't know what our families are doing, if they're OK or not. But it's real devastating," Nicobo Nombre tells CBS 2's Mike Parker.

"Every time we go home to the Philippines, that's the place we go home to," JoJo Prisno says of Tacloban.

Now the men wonder what – if anything -- will be there on their next visit home. Worse, they wonder who will still be alive.

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