Forensic team holds postmortems in hangar

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—The unclaimed bodies of storm victims earlier dumped in a sanitary landfill are now in a hangar at Lumbia Airport here.

Dr. Wifredo Tierra, leader of the Disaster Victim Identification of the National Bureau of Investigation, on Wednesday said they have transferred the bodies to a hangar owned by the National Power Corp.

The hangar was also where the remains of the Cebu Pacific air crash in 1998 were identified.

Tierra earlier said it was the first time for his group of forensic experts to examine the remains of victims in a garbage dump.

The forensic team, which arrived Monday afternoon, had to work in the middle of the garbage pile with nothing to protect them from the heat of the sun except for several tarpaulin tents. Aside from the stench of the decomposing bodies, they also have to deal with the overpowering stench of garbage.

Mayor’s decision

The bodies had piled up in the city’s funeral homes. Mayor Vicente Emano ordered the transfer of the bodies in the landfill area, a decision met with outrage, accusing the mayor of disrespecting the dead.

Emano said he did not have a choice but to transfer the bodies to the landfill as people were already complaining of the stench and that relatives of the victims were requesting for a mass burial.

At least 70 bodies were brought to the landfill.

The forensic experts hoped to finish with the examination of the bodies yesterday. That is, if the bodies stop piling up.

Postmortem

Tierra said as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, 13 bodies have been buried in a shallow grave at the Bolonsiri Public Cemetery.

The 13 bodies were tagged and placed in body bags after undergoing postmortem identification, which involved the actual fingerprinting, collection of DNA samples and dental identification. The victim’s clothing and body tattoos were also examined.

Tierra said his team was having difficulty with the fingerprinting of the bodies because the skin has started to peel off.

Tierra and his team of experts are the same team who did the examination and identification of the victims of MV Princess of the Stars, a shipping vessel which sank off the coast of Romblon in 2008. Cai Panlilio, Inquirer Mindanao