Decomposing bodies pile up; casualties hit 823

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 in white plastic bags bound with tan-colored packaging tape.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported Monday afternoon that bodies of 823victims were thus far recovered.NDRRMC executive director Benito Ramos said most of the fatalities were from Region 10. He said many of the bodies found were already decomposing. Ramos added his agency had lost count of the number of missing people. He called to the public for donations of food, clothing and blankets for people now staying in temporary shelters. Burials were expected to take place starting Tuesday, local officials said.

The disaster area is normally bypassed by typhoons that ravage other parts of the country every year.
Teresita Badiang, an engineer at the Iligan mayor’s office, said the city had begun constructing two concrete communal tombs where cadavers would be placed side by side “so that their burial will be dignified.”
The disaster council said at least 227 people died in Iligan.

In Cagayan de Oro, where the disaster council placed the death toll at 336, Mayor Vicente Emano said a mass burial would be held within the week but aides said the exact location had not been finalised.
Dr Jaime Bernadas, the department of health’s director for the region, said cadavers were still being processed prior to “temporary burial” in the city.

Health officials were taking DNA samples and photographs of victims. “We are giving time for relatives to claim (the bodies),” he said.

About 47,000 evacuees are now huddled in evacuation centres in Washi’s wake, mostly in the northern coast of Mindanao, a vast poverty-stricken island troubled for decades by a Muslim separatist insurgency.
Dr Eric Tayag, head of the national epidemiology center and Department of Health (DoH) spokesman, said the government was taking steps to prevent outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, dengue and respiratory problems particularly in congested evacuation centres.

“Around 10 days after this flooding there might be an epidemic of water-borne diseases,” Tayag warned on television.Philippine Red Cross chief Gwendolyn Pang said strict guidelines had to be followed in mass burials, including photographing corpses, listing identifying marks and laying them a meter apart for possible exhumation. “I’m sure their families will look for them,” she said. President Aquino is set to visit the stricken zone today after ordering a review of the country’s disaster defenses.

Ramos, the government’s disaster agency chief, said most of the victims were “informal settlers” — a term typically used for slum squatters who are often unregistered by authorities.

Authorities likened tropical storm Sendong to 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, killing more than 460 people.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), for its part, vowed the fast-track release of P1.297 billion calamity fund to help victims of the tropical storm that ravaged Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and several areas in Mindanao.

Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad said “the government is generously equipped to mobilize and support disaster relief efforts in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, and other Sendong-affected areas.”
“We are ensuring the quick release of these funds so that victims will receive swift and proper assistance,” he said.  Abad also said that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of National Defense (DND), and the Department of Education (DepEd) “are also adequately supported by separate Quick Response Funds (QRFs), which will guarantee direct and immediate support to Sendong-stricken areas.”

“In addition to the Calamity Fund and the QRFs, we also have the Local Government Support Fund shares of all affected local government units, for whom President Aquino will provide Special Allotment Release Orders (SAROs) and Notices of Allocation (NCAs) tomorrow,” he said.

Abad said “if additional disaster-response funds are required, the Administration has sufficient reserves to augment the Calamity Fund and QRFs to expedite relief operations to all affected areas and communities.”
Relatively, Abad said that for next year the calamity fund was increased by P2.5 billion to P7.5 billion relative to this year’s budget.

The governments of France , United Kingdom and Japan joined the growing international outpouring of support and sympathies for the victims and survivors of the deadly storm that battered Mindanao and some part of Visayas over the weekend and feared to have killed at least 1,000 people.

Philippine government officials on Monday said the death toll is nearing 700 as more bodies are being retrieved two days after tropical storm Sendong dumped heavy rains Friday to Saturday, causing rivers to overflow that inundated many villages and destroyed vital infrastructures.

Earlier, the United States and China extended their condolences and pledged assistance to Manila ’s relief efforts. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) also sent a 15-man team on a weeklong assignment to Cagayan de Oro and Iligan to help identify bodies through photographs, fingerprints, dental records and DNA tests on tissue samples.

An NBI Disaster Victim Identification team based in Cagayan de Oro has already identified 203 out of 249 bodies recovered in Cagayan de Oro, as of Dec. 18, 6 p.m.

“We have to identify first the bodies. We might as well do it now because if not, we might have to exhume them again,” said NBI deputy director for technical services Reynaldo Esmeralda said.
NBI-Medico-Legal team Division Chief Dr. Alvin David said he has sent a 15-man team belonging to the agency’s Disaster Victim Identification Team (DVIT) to help Cagayan De Oro authorities identify hundreds of corpses.

David explained that they will be conducting specimen harvesting test coming from the bodies of the dead victim to get DNA samples coming from the bone, leg muscles and liver tissue.
Members of the House of Representatives crossed partylines yesterday to help victims of typhoon Sendong in Mindanao.

Led by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, the 285-strong Lower House came up with a resolution that they would contribute P20,000 each from their salaries and another P1-million each from their priority development assistance fund to help the typhoon victims. “The situation needs an immediate national response. We have decided to give our all-out efforts, not just as an institution but as individuals,” Belmonte said in a press conference yesterday at the House media center. The Speaker also revealed that like Cagayan Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and the other lawmaker from the hard hit areas in Mindanao and the Visayas, he was in touch with Aquino early the day after the catastrophe. “The President is on top of the whole thing. He has mobilized the different agencies of government to help the areas affected,” Belmonte said as he continued to coordinate with the various political parties in the House of Representatives on ways to rebuild the areas affected. The Speaker said that the cash donations will be distributed not only to Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities but also to other areas hit by the storm and the subsequent flooding that resulted in the death of hundreds of residents and is still causing damage to private and public infrastructure.

Likewise, the Speaker said that in the long term, he is leading a move to convince each member of the House to give P1-million each from their respective Priority Development Assistance Funds reserved for hard projects to be used in the rehabilitation of public infrastructure in the devastated areas.

Zambales Rep. Mitos Magsaysay was among the first to respond from the opposition bloc in the House even as she urged Filipinos to mobilize themselves into action and help the victims of typhoon Sendong.

“What happened was truly a tragedy especially this close to Christmas. My prayers go out to those who have lost their homes and their loved ones in the floods,” she said as she expressed faith in the resilience of Filipinos and their strength in times of disasters.

Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, for his part, urged the government to enroll those who have lost homes to typhoon Sendong in its P40-billion Conditional Cash Transfer program as it is the best source of long-term aid for the victims.

He said Sendong victims exceed the official definition of what a poor is that would qualify them for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, CCT’s official name.They need not be identified via the DWSD’s household targeting system.

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara expressed deep sympathy for the victims of the devastation.
“We mourn with those who lost their loved ones in the floods and extend all the help we can muster,” said Angara who also lamented that “this isn’t the first time we faced such a tragedy. The costs are too high for us not to use what we have learned from past experiences in better preparing ourselves for future typhoons.”
The Chair of the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) noted reports that a joint weather monitoring mission between the US and Japan predicted that ‘Sendong’ would usher heavy rains similar to ‘Ondoy’ (International Name: Ketsana).

Analyzing satellite data gathered on ‘Sendong,’ the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) saw heavy rain falling at around 50 mm per hour. Rains from ‘Ondoy’ fell on Metro Manila at 56.83 mm per hour in September 2009.

In contrast, the national weather bureau Pagasaestimated only 10-25 mm per hour of rainfall from ‘Sendong’.
“Clearly, we still need to improve our disaster management and risk reduction systems,” said Angara. “Government must push for concerted effort not only in improving our forecasting technologies but also in seeking the help of other nations, whenever we lack the infrastructure and expertise.”

Vice President Jejomar Binay also appealed for aid for victims of flashfloods brought about by Typhoon Sendong in Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City and Iligan City. Binay said any kind of relief assistance would greatly help the victims. “Our kababayans in CDO and Iligan are in dire need of our help. Donations, whether in cash or in kind, would go a long way towards easing their suffering,” he said. Binay said that Christmas is the season of giving and hoped that the spirit of the holiday season “touch would touch generous hearts to help those in need.” He also asked for prayers for those who died in the floods.

The Vice President flew to CDO early yesterday morning and personally distributed 2,880 bags of relief goods to Kagay-anons staying at the evacuation centers in Macasandig, City Central Elementary School and West City Elementary School.

He also went to funeral homes and extended cash assistance and his condolences to families who lost their loved ones in the wake of the massive floods.

Meanwhile, Binay ordered the Office of the Vice President distribute 5,000 bags of relief goods to victims in Iligan City; 5,000 to Dumaguete City; and another 10,000 bags to CDO. “The relief goods will be available on Dec. 22nd,” Binay said.

Gerry Baldo, Pat C. Santos, Michaela P. del Callar, AFP
12/20/11

http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20111220hed1.html

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2,383 disaster victims identified by DNA analysis: surve

SENDAI (Kyodo) -- A total of 2,383 victims or about 15 percent of people who died in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures have been identified by DNA analysis, a survey by the National Police Agency showed Thursday.

Amid difficulties in identifying the victims as they were mostly people who died in the tsunami and many bodies were found after a lengthy period, police have collected DNA samples from more than 7,000 family members of missing victims and built a database.

According to the NPA, the number of victims found in the three hardest-hit prefectures in northeastern Japan totaled 15,773 as of Dec. 11 and 15,104 of them were identified. Of the 2,383 victims identified by DNA analysis, 2,245 were identified with help by physicality, teeth marks and belongings such as driver's licenses, while the other 138 were identified only by DNA analysis with their hair or other tissues remaining, the agency said.

With about 500 medical examiners and other officers sent from across the country to disaster-hit regions at the peak, about 1,500 officers worked to identify the victims.Police in the three prefectures also posted physicality, belongings and other information on unidentified victims on their websites, while police stations displayed the victims' photos taken in morgues to enable people to view them.

Nearly 10 months have passed since the disaster, but the three prefectural police departments plan to continue their search for the missing.

In Fukushima Prefecture, police conducted a search Thursday in the town of Namie from where residents are still mostly evacuated due to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

As 669 victims have yet to be identified, a Miyagi prefectural police official said while DNA analysis of such a large number of people is unusual, they would make efforts to identify more victims in order to return remains to their families.

(Mainichi Japan) December 30, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111230p2g00m0dm015000c.html

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Phuket's Tsunami Legacy: Local Policeman Given Nameless Bodies

By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian 

Thursday, December 22, 2011

PHUKET: What would you do if you were given almost 400 nameless bodies?


That's the problem for a police officer in a town north of Phuket as he is left with what remains of an international tsunami victim identification project that was once acclaimed around the world.

''Now that they've spent the money, they've given the project to me,'' said Superintendent Colonel Taratcha Tamspat, chief of police in Takuapa, a coastal centre in the neighboring province of Phang Nga.

The Thai Tsunami Victim Identification unit once involved police and forensic experts from around the world in the largest and most successful project of its kind, giving names back to the thousands of tourists and Thais who were killed by the tsunami on Phuket and along the Andaman coast on December 26, 2004.

Now, it appears, the epic project has drawn to a close with the all-Thai vestiges of the endeavor dispensing with data and more than 380 bodies to a local policeman who has little idea about the grand international mission.

It was left to Phuketwan to remind Colonel Taratcha that the seventh anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Thailand's greatest natural disaster, falls next Monday.

''I didn't know,'' the colonel said. ''I have been in this job in Phang Nga for less than a year.''

The colonel remains perplexed at being given the bodies and the information connected to the project without so much as a briefing.

''The people at the TTVI gave us the information in boxes, without a clue as to what it is all about,'' he said. ''We don't have skills or equipment. We don't know much about what went on.''

The bodies, the remains of the as-yet-unnamed victims of the tsunami, are all in a cemetery in the village of Bang Maruan, a few kilometres south of Takuapa. Each body is in a metal coffin, and each coffin is encased in a concrete tomb, in case further DNA samples are needed one day.

The graveyard, with a metal plaque at the gates listing the 39 nations involved in the epic forensic project, has often been left overgrown with weeds in the care of the TTVI.

What really irks Colonel Taratcha is that the handover also included a large electricity bill. For years, some bodies that were to be handed back to relatives were stored above-ground in cooled sea shipping containers.

''We don't have funding to pay for the electricity used by the TTVI so we will have to pay off the bill a little at a time,'' Colonel Taratcha said.

Two bodies were returned to relatives just this year, the colonel said, one to a family in Petchabun province and the other to local relatives in Takuapa.

The bodies of 24 identified Burmese are still being held because authorities in Burma (Myanmar) have never assisted with contacting their relatives.

About 5400 people, almost equally Thais and from other countries, perished when the tsunami swept in. Some were easily identified in the days immediately after the big wave but the remainder could not be given names.

Rather than bury the dead without identification, the international community decided to give them names and sent scores of police, dentists and forensic scientists to Phuket and the Andaman coast.

A total of 3279 people were identified and returned as part of the remarkable international process.

With international funding, the cemetery and two substantial buildings were constructed in the hope that identifications would continue.

As the international groups withdrew, interest in the process waned and the prospects of giving someone a name with 99.9 percent certainty diminished.

But the colonel does have some good news.

''We have cleaned up the cemetery and the local Public Health department unit would like to use the buildings as part of their drug rehabilitation program,'' he said.

While a memorial service at the tsunami victims' cemetery seems unlikely this year, the anniversary will be marked nearby in the village of Nam Khem and at the patrol boat that was washed two kilometres inland in Khao Lak.

On Phuket, memorial services will be held at Patong, Kamala and at the Mai Khao tsunami memorial wall.

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/phukets-tsunami-legacy-local-policeman-given-nameless-bodies-15209/

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Thousands of Bodies Remain Unidentified after Sichuan Earthquake

It has been over a month since a massive earthquake shook Sichuan province in China and claimed tens of thousands of lives. The total number of people who lost their lives in the quake, as estimated by the Sichuan Public Security Bureau, continues to rise.


Adding to their sorrow after the tragedy, is the process families go through in identifying a loved one's body, which in a disaster such as an earthquake is not a simple matter. Regulations in Sichuan have funeral homes publicizing notifications of unclaimed bodies. If a body stays unclaimed for 24 hours, it is cremated and the ashes are kept.

Prior to the cremations, in a process of forensic identification, three photos are taken of each body. One is of the face, one is of the whole body, and the other one is of a remaining personal identifier (such as a mole or deformity) or a personal belonging. Nine sets of pictures are printed out and posted in different funeral homes in hopes that relatives can identify them.

Besides keeping victims' photos, authorities are constructing several DNA databases, so future genetic comparisons can be made by relatives. In Dujiangyan city, the registration of first lineal relatives' DNA sample has initiated. Unfortunately, due to the technical difficulty involved, together with an enormous work load, even the most advanced DNA matching processes available will likely still leave the remains of thousands of victims unidentified.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/8-6-23/72350.html

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