One of the most powerful typhoons ever to make landfall crashed into the central Philippines on Friday, causing widespread damage and some loss of life, but the colossal storm’s speed may have spared the island nation an even worse fate.

Typhoon Haiyan’s heavy winds and huge storm surge killed 56 people, according to unofficial reports monitored by the Philippine Embassy in Washington, said Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. The Filipino government has confirmed six deaths, he said. Other reports put the toll at more than 100. Damage was widespread but impossible to estimate with communication cut off to islands such as Samar, Leyte, Cebu and Panay in the path of the huge storm, but search and rescue efforts had begun, Cuisia said.

“We still have to see what kind of damage has been wrought by this disaster, but so far I am relieved to know [the death toll] is much, much lower than in previous typhoons,” he said.

The “super typhoon,” known as Yolanda in the Philippines, made landfall in Guiuan at 4:40 a.m. local time, blasting the coast of Eastern Samar province with sustained winds of 145 mph and gusts that reached 170 mph, according to a report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The typhoon left the Philippines early Saturday and was headed toward Southeast Asia.

Aid groups and local media described “storm surge and flash flooding . . . with significant damage to buildings and homes,” the report said. “Humanitarian partners reported rooftops of even secure buildings were blown away. Waves reached 12 to 15 feet in Samar and Leyte. In some areas, flash floods reached the second floor of buildings.”

Fueled by warm ocean temperatures in the western Pacific, Haiyan nearly attained the maximum wind speeds possible for a typhoon. Satellite images showed a storm 700 miles across with textbook characteristics: an unmistakably clear eye surrounded by towering thunderstorms and impeccable symmetry.

As the storm approached landfall, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor estimated its maximum sustained winds at 190 to 195 mph, with gusts to 230 mph. If verified, those would be the most powerful on record for any storm that has made landfall.

In the Atlantic, hurricane hunter aircraft directly sample the conditions inside storms. But typhoon strength in the western Pacific is estimated from satellite data, which are less precise.

“We will never know definitively how strong any of them were,” said Brian McNoldy, a tropical weather researcher at the University of Miami.

Haiyan “was among the most intense storms ever recorded on the planet,” he added.

About 18 million people were in the storm’s path, according to the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs office, and 125,000 had been evacuated before the typhoon hit. The area includes Cebu, the Philippines second-largest city. The nation is battered by about 20 typhoons — called hurricanes and cyclones elsewhere — and major storms every year. But few, if any, have packed the wind speed of Haiyan.