Philippines buries its dead as flood toll tops 1,000

Philippines authorities on Tuesday began burying the dead from flash floods that have left more than 1,000 dead or missing, as President Benigno Aquino declared a national disaster. Aquino flew to Mindanao island to inspect the ports of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan -- choked with drying mud, crumpled homes, and hundreds of decomposing corpses after being struck by tropical storm Washi on the weekend. Two dump trucks arrived at the public cemetery in Iligan at dusk, with soldiers unloading 38 coffins of victims who have been identified and claimed by relatives, who cried and lit candles as they witnessed the burial. On Monday as the stench of decomposing bodies grew unbearable and health fears rose, local authorities had announced plans for burials in mass graves but after intense criticism they hastily arranged individual tombs. "It is not like digging a hole and sticking them in there. They are being given apartment-style compartments, and I think it's pretty decent," Iligan city Mayor Lawrence Cruz told AFP as he led the first of the burials. A priest sprinkled holy water on each coffin before it was pushed into the tombs. Cruz said that forensics experts were taking fingerprints and DNA samples of the many other unidentified bodies at overflowing local mortuaries and that dozens more cadavers would be ready for burial on Wednesday. Aquino pledged aid to the slum communities hit by the disaster, which the government has said left 957 people dead and 49 others missing -- a toll they fear could rise as bodies swept out to sea begin to surface. "I assure you the government will help you rebuild your homes. But in return we expect you to refrain from moving back to those places that put your lives at constant risk," Aquino said in a speech at an evacuation centre. The president pledged to repair damaged roads and water systems, mass housing units in safe relocation areas, and water level sensors for all major river basins across the country to help communities avoid similar disasters. Aquino said he would sign an order declaring a national "State of Calamity" to make the necessary funds available. Officials and experts said many of the dead were informal settlers living in shantytowns built on river sand bars made up of soft and unstable sediment. But Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano said that despite the president's words, he would be unable to stop survivors returning unless the government can offer them homes elsewhere. "These people will insist on going back because they have no other place to go back to. Are you going to shoot them?" he said on ABS-CBN television. Washi brought heavy rains that swelled rivers, unleashing flash floods and landslides that struck in the dead of night. The death toll rose sharply on Tuesday as the bodies of people who were swept out to sea were recovered. "It (the death toll) is still going up and it will reach a thousand. There are still cadavers floating at sea," Benito Ramos, the civil defence office chief told AFP. A British national was among those killed by the storm, Britain's Foreign Office said. Burials in Cagayan de Oro are on hold until small teams of forensic experts finish documenting each cadaver, city officials said. "The mass burial is not just dumping them in a pit. We are building an apartment-type (mausoleum) with individual compartments. We can't just put them in all together," Cagayan de Oro city council member Alvin Bakal told AFP. Some 30 unidentified bodies were taken to a landfill for the documentation process, sparking outrage as pictures of the cadavers, kept under a tent a few metres away from the dump, circulated on social networking sites. "Looking for your mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son, brother, sister who have been missing since Saturday’s flash floods? Go to the city’s dumpsite," Mindanews, a Mindanao-based news outfit, said on its website. Mayor Emano said however that the move was carried out at the suggestion of the forensics team after residents complained of the bad smell. More than 284,000 people have been displaced by the storm with over 42,000 huddled in crowded, makeshift government evacuation centres. Authorities likened the impact of tropical storm Washi to Ketsana, 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 464 people.