NBI sends medico-legal, forensics teams to identify ‘Yolanda’ victims

NBI officer-in-charge Medardo De Lemos. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The National Bureau of Investigation has sent medico legal and forensic experts to Tacloban City and other areas hit by supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) to help in identifying bodies of victims, its top official said.

Medardo de Lemos, NBI officer in charge, said that Disaster Victims Identification (DVI) specialists from the International Police (Interpol) have also offered their assistance and would be deployed in various areas also affected by the super typhoon.

“The team will assess the needs for the DVI procedure to start as soon as possible,” De Lemos said.

The Intepol and NBI experts will meet Wednesday to further discuss the needs for the DVI procedure, according to De Lemos.

He explained that part of the process for DVI would be fingerprinting and dental comparison.’’

The two, he said, would be the main source of information to obtain conclusive identifications.

According to a member of the team, DNA testing is used as a last resort if families are unable to produce dental records of their loved ones or fingerprint records from the NBI.

De Lemos said local and foreign forensics experts would work closely and would be deployed in various areas to help local authorities identify the victims.

He added that NBI was involved in the identification of the remains of victims in previous catastrophic typhoons such as Sendong and Pablo.

He also said that NBI forensic experts were also tapped to identify remains of the victims of the sinking of the Princess of the Stars.

The NBI will bring mobile forensic laboratories to areas affected by typhoon Yolanda, according to De Lemos.

He, however, admitted that the bureau’s limited resources and the sheer number of victims have posed the biggest challenges to NBI’s work in disaster response.

“With limited resources, the forensic teams will rely heavily on the availability of relevant evidence for proper and conclusive identifications for a very large number of victims,’’ De Lemos said.

He added that NBI offices in the devastated areas in Visayas were also destroyed.

“Our men on the ground were also victims, our offices were severely damaged and their homes were also ravaged by the typhoons,’’ the NBI official said.

He added that new set of agents would be deployed to affected areas.