Philippines dumps bodies after typhoon
- 12 years ago
WARNING - EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL
This landfill in the southern Philippines has become a dumping ground for rotting corpses, following flashfloods and landslides which have killed nearly a thousand people.
Funeral parlours and morgues in the cities hit hardest by Typhoon Washi - which swept into Mindanao Island late on Friday, triggering the disaster - have been unable to cope with the influx of bodies.
Corpses are piled up inside the morgues, with others dumped in landfills alongside the debris from the typhoon.
(SOUNDBITE) (Cebuano) UNIDENTIFIED VILLAGER SAYING:
"When I saw the bodies piled together inside the landfill, I was horrified. They treated the bodies like animals and left them there under the sun and without any covering."
With more than 957 bodies recovered in different parts of the island, the mayor of Cagayan De Oro city said they had to find a solution.
(SOUNDBITE) (Cebuano) CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY MAYOR VICENTE EMANO SAYING:
"We have a problem because the funeral parlors are refusing to admit the dead bodies, so we had to dump them in the landfills until we can dig appropriate mass graves for them."
The Philippine Navy is sending hundreds of coffins from the capital Manila to help with the burial efforts.
An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines each year.
Nick Rowlands, Reuters.
This landfill in the southern Philippines has become a dumping ground for rotting corpses, following flashfloods and landslides which have killed nearly a thousand people.
Funeral parlours and morgues in the cities hit hardest by Typhoon Washi - which swept into Mindanao Island late on Friday, triggering the disaster - have been unable to cope with the influx of bodies.
Corpses are piled up inside the morgues, with others dumped in landfills alongside the debris from the typhoon.
(SOUNDBITE) (Cebuano) UNIDENTIFIED VILLAGER SAYING:
"When I saw the bodies piled together inside the landfill, I was horrified. They treated the bodies like animals and left them there under the sun and without any covering."
With more than 957 bodies recovered in different parts of the island, the mayor of Cagayan De Oro city said they had to find a solution.
(SOUNDBITE) (Cebuano) CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY MAYOR VICENTE EMANO SAYING:
"We have a problem because the funeral parlors are refusing to admit the dead bodies, so we had to dump them in the landfills until we can dig appropriate mass graves for them."
The Philippine Navy is sending hundreds of coffins from the capital Manila to help with the burial efforts.
An average of 20 typhoons hit the Philippines each year.
Nick Rowlands, Reuters.