IT was one of the strongest storms ever recorded, affecting the lives of millions of people all over the Philippines.

More than 5500 people have so far died in Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the country earlier this month, and the death roll is still rising.

Now a Scottish volunteer who is working with other aid workers to help the devastated country has spoken about her experiences.

Katy Martin, of Paisley, Renfrewshire, says the worst-hit areas look as if they have been struck by a tsunami.

Working with a team of three, the 31-year-old had the massive job of setting up an aid ­distributions warehouse to help co-ordinate the British Red Cross aid effort.

The main initial challenge was to co-ordinate getting food, shelter and clean water to the worst affected areas, firstly by getting tankers of water and supplies to their warehouse in the city of Cebu, and then on to those in need in eastern areas such as Tacloban and Ormoc.

Speaking to colleagues at the charity's Glasgow headquarters via Skype, Ms Martin said: "So far we're clearing about nine trucks a day from the airport to the warehouse, so things are starting to move a lot faster.

"We arrived here as a team of four and in the first week we were able to establish a warehouse which was given to us by the Philippine Red Cross that had been empty for three or four years. We were able to establish power and we're working on getting running water.

"We basically have a fully-operating operations centre and warehouse which started as an empty shell less than three weeks ago. In the first few days we were having very limited sleep, but things are starting to improve slightly, but the level of work is still very high."

A senior community fundraiser for the British Red Cross in her day-to-day life, Ms Martin signed up to be part of its emergency response unit (ERU), which is trained to respond to large-scale disasters.

After a year of training, Katy went on call as part of the team on November 1, and only days later was posted out to the Philippines on her first international duty.

Now, she is part of the team which helps distribute relief items, such as shelter kits, to more than 30,000 families and between 30,000 and 90,000 litres of water every day, often working up to 19 hours a day.

She has faced challenges on a daily basis. Only this week, her bed felt like it had "lifted from the floor and fell back down again" in an aftershock from an earthquake in the Bohol region of the country.

Ms Martin said that although many people are slowly rebuilding their lives the ones that were hardest hit are far away from any kind of normality.

She said: "In some areas, they are moving into recovery stage, although the relief effort is still continuing in the hardest hit areas. This is going to be a very long-term programme and it's certainly not something that anyone can see from this stage how long that would take.

"It's not going to be a Christmas that [the Filipino people] are used to. I think by then, hopefully things will have improved, but it won't be back to any form of real normality in certain areas such as Tacloban and Ormoc,

"I think it will be a very ­different Christmas for them."

Scotland has already ­contributed more than £4 million in donations Ms Martin, who is coming back on December 10, added: "I'm immensely proud of Scotland have actually raised for this appeal already. I'd encourage people to be generous if they haven't already because there's a lot of work to be done and it's very much appreciated over here."