( CNN ) -- More than 1,000 people are missing in the aftermath of a tropical storm that wreaked havoc across the southern Philippines last weekend , the country 's government said Friday , as it grappled with the mounting humanitarian crisis in the region . A total of 1,079 people remain unaccounted for , the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said in a statement . Earlier in the week , the disaster council said it had lost count of the number of missing as it tried to assess the scale of the destruction . The death toll from Tropical Storm Washi , which set off landslides and flash floods that swept away whole villages , has risen to 1,080 , according to the council . The United Nations said Wednesday that the storm has created `` huge '' humanitarian needs on the island of Mindanao , the scene of the worst devastation . It has made an appeal to raise $ 28 million to deal with the immediate problems in the area , with hundreds of thousands of people displaced in and around the port cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro . `` I was shocked by scale of destruction I saw , '' David Carden , the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Philippines told CNN on Thursday after visiting the region . He said it looked as if an `` inland tsunami had struck the area . '' Around 675,000 people have been affected by the storm , the disaster council said Friday , with more than 300,000 of them being taken care of at evacuation centers at the moment . President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines has declared a state of national calamity following the storm . The disaster council said it estimated the cost of the damage caused by the storm at more than one billion Philippines pesos ( $ 23 million ) .
A total of 1,080 people remain unaccounted for after Tropical Storm Washi , the government says . The death toll from the storm continues to rise , reaching More than 300,000 . 1,079 people are being taken care of at evacuation centers . The Tropical Storm Washi has made an appeal to raise $ 23 million to deal with 'huge ' humanitarian needs .