The USS George Washington, with 5,000 sailors aboard, headed an eight-strong flotilla of US vessels bearing badly needed equipment, supplies and expertise for the thousands left homeless and hungry by one of the strongest storms in history.
But almost a week after Super Typhoon Haiyan swept through the country's central islands, killing thousands and leaving a security vacuum in its wake, desperation was still apparent and many of the dead remained unburied.
"Those who have been able to leave have done so. Many more are trying. People are extremely desperate for help," she told reporters in Manila.
"We need to get assistance to them now. They are already saying it has taken too long to arrive. Ensuring a faster delivery is our... Immediate priority."
The world body's leader Ban Ki-moon, currently in Latvia, later added UN agencies and teams "are on the ground to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance".
Around 110 corpses were interred in a mass grave today before heavy-digging machinery broke down, Tacloban mayor Alfred Romualdez said.
They were placed at the bottom of a huge pit that is expected to be several layers deep by the time it is covered over with earth.
"There are still so many cadavers in so many areas. It's scary," Romualdez told AFP, adding that retrieval teams were struggling to cope.
"There would be a request from one community to collect five or 10 bodies and when we get there, there are 40," he said, describing aid agencies' response to the crisis as too slow.
US officials said relief channels were slowly opening up with the reopening of a main road.
Ships and planes from Asia-Pacific nations and Europe are also converging on the Philippines, bearing food, water, medical supplies, tents and other essentials to a population in dire need of the basics of life.