Sendong death toll over 900: NDRRMC Preparing for mass burials of flash-flood victims

MANILA, Philippines - The death toll from the destructive storm Sendong that hit the southern Philippines has risen to 927 as bodies surfaced in the sea, the head of the government disaster monitoring council said Tuesday.

The death toll of storm Sendong is expected to rise even further as more floating bodies are recovered after sunrise, said Benito Ramos, head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.


He put the total of the dead at 927, adding that the council had lost count of all those still missing after tropical storm “Sendong” (international codename: Washi) brought heavy rains, flash floods and overflowing rivers to the southern island of Mindanao.

"They (the dead bodies) were washed out to sea. They were underwater for the first three days but now, in their state of decomposition, they are bloated and floating to the surface," Ramos told AFP.
"The death toll will rise again (in the morning) when more bodies surface."

The huge death toll came as government relief workers recovered more bodies from Mindanao, particularly in the devastated port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, which have borne most of the deaths from the tropical storm.

Whole villages perched on sandbars or on the shores of rivers were washed away when Sendong struck Mindanao and nearby areas over the weekend.

Ramos's latest toll was a sharp increase from the council's previous figures of 662 dead and 82 missing issued mere hours earlier.

The Philippine National Red Cross, which is doing its own tally, reported 713 dead and 563 missing in a statement at 6:30 p.m.

Both Iligan and Cagayan de Oro are planning mass burials of their dead as scores of decomposing bodies have swamped the local funeral parlors, filling the air with an overpowering stench.
The disaster area, located about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the capital Manila, is normally bypassed by the average of 20 typhoons that ravage other parts of the far-flung Philippine archipelago every year.

As a result, many residents were caught by surprise when floods suddenly hit their homes in the dead of night, before dawn Saturday.

More than 88,000 people have been displaced by storm Sendong with over half of them huddled in crowded, makeshift government evacuation centers, the disaster management council said.

President Benigno Aquino III is also scheduled to visit the storm-hit areas on Tuesday after ordering a review of government disaster prevention measures.

Getting a full accounting of the death victims and the missing is difficult as most of the victims were "informal settlers" -- a term typically used for slum squatters and internal migrants who are often unregistered by authorities.

Authorities likened the impact of tropical storm Washi (Sendong) to Ketsana (Ondoy), one of the country's most devastating storms which dumped huge amounts of rain on Manila and other parts of the country in 2009, leaving more than 460 death victims.

Watch the aftermath of typhoon Sendong in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.



Source of article:  interaksyon.com