Latvia sends emergency aid to Phillipines

Latvia has allocated 30,000 euros towards relief efforts in the Phillipines after one of history's fiercest storms battered the country earlier this month.

Up to 4,000 people are dead and 11 million people affected after Typhoon Haiyan struck the country on Nov. 8. Aid agencies have launched emergency appeals to help relief efforts in the country.

The Foreign Ministry of Latvia said it was necessary to send aid due  that the volume of the damage caused by the catastrophe, as well as Latvia's desire to continue developing bilateral relations with the Philippines.

The United Nations raised its estimate for the number of people displaced from 1.9 million to three million, while the official death toll rose to 3,976 with 1,590 people still missing, the AFP news agency reports.

Early estimates by analysts of the economic cost of the typhoon to the Philippines have been put at around 14 billion dollars.

Estonia sent 150,00 euros of aid and two experts to the Phillipines earlier this month.