9 out of 10 typhoon deaths still unidentified
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Nearly nine out of 10 fatalities in the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yolanda have remained unidentified more than a month after the storm hit the country, according to an official advisory.
The figure was put out by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) on its website, but it differed with that obtained by the Inquirer from NDRRMC executive director Eduardo del Rosario, who put the number at “only” 33 per cent of the total death toll.
Del Rosario said he would have the disparity in figures checked.
In its latest advisory, the NDRRMC said the death toll in the 24th weather disturbance to strike the Philippines this year had climbed 6,057 as 24 more bodies were recovered on Saturday. The council said 1,779 persons were still missing while 27,568 were injured in various typhoon-related incidents.
Of the actual retrieved bodies, a total of 5,333 – or about 88 per cent of the death toll – have yet to be identified, the council’s records showed.
Most of the victims died either by drowning or were hit by flying objects from collapsed structures as the typhoon triggered storm surges as high as 7 metres and powerful winds that levelled large swaths of the Visayas island.
In Tacloban City, regarded as the ground zero of the storm, 2,442 victims were still nameless as their families have yet to come forward to identify them.
In Palo town, located next to Tacloban, 1,089 bodies remained unidentified while in nearby Tanauan town, authorities were clueless about the identities of 1,252 victims.
Rosario said it might take a while for the government to finish the identification of all those who died.
Since the government started looking for the fatalities, Del Rosario said 10 to 15 bodies were being retrieved daily by the team headed by Senior Superintendent Pablito Cordeta.
