As the body count rose to 823 late yesterday, authorities expect that the casualties from flash floods that devastated two port cities in Mindanao spawned by Typhoon Sendong will continue to pile up in the coming days as officials said more are missing than reported since entire families were believed swept to sea as they slept in coastal slums.
Towns in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities which were worst hit by the devastation prepared mass burials for decomposing bodies with authorities saying unclaimed cadavers piling up in mortuaries were posing health risks and had to be buried.
Several television footage showed decomposing bodies lined up in different centers where the dead were delivered for identification, underlining the serious tragedy that some of the survivors compared to the recent tsunami that hit parts of northern Japan last March. One footage from an Iligan mortuary showed a
corridor lined with bodies wrapped...
