Official death count now at 3,633

The latest bulletin from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) raised the number of confirmed deaths from Supertyphoon “Yolanda” to 3,633 from 3,621, with 1,170 people still missing.

The United Nations, in a briefing at UN headquarters in New York on Friday, clarified that its earlier reported death toll of 4,460 was “based on estimates and not actual confirmed deaths.” The world body deferred to the official Philippine count or that of the NDRRMC.

Both the NDRRMC and the UN, however, said they expected this figure to rise as relief and rescue efforts get underway.

Aside from the count of retrieved bodies and reports of the missing, the NDRRMC listed 12,487 injured as of Saturday.

In Tacloban City, the hardest hit area, City Administrator Tecson John Lim said 802 bodies had been recovered.

Lim admitted, however, that only 535 cadavers had been placed in body bags and only 392 had been buried in a mass gave in Basper Cemetery.

The National Bureau of Investigation is working with a task force in Tacloban City to help retrieve and identify the dead.

He said the task force was composed of the NBI, Scene of the Crime operatives of the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Fire Protection and contingents from the Metro Manila Development Authority.

Dr. Reynaldo Romero, NBI medico legal officer in Tacloban City, said forensic experts from Interpol were expected to arrive in the city to help in the identification of the bodies.

Romero said Barangay San Jose near the Tacloban City airport had the most number of bodies found.

In many affected areas, Romero said, many bodies had yet to be found.

“Almost all the bodies that have been retrieved remain unidentified and unburied,” he said.

Romero also said that a site had been identified as a “collective temporary mass burial site.”

He said 342 bodies had been brought to Basper Cemetery for interment.

The final identification of the bodies could take a while, he said.

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office is urgently looking into reports that a British man and his family may have been killed by Yolanda while visiting the Philippines.

Colin Bembridge, a 61-year-old pharmacist from the northeast of England, his Filipino partner Maybelle, 35, and their three-year-old daughter Victoria had not been seen since the typhoon struck, the UK’s Channel Four News reported.

They were visiting Maybelle’s relatives and had rented a beach house in the coastal village of Baybay close to Tacloban.

But the house was destroyed, leaving only its wreckage, including a games console belonging to the daughter.

“I just want to know whether they are dead or whether they were blown by the winds,” Maybelle’s mother, Lydia Go, 79, told the broadcaster.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are aware of reports that a British national was killed by Typhoon Haiyan. We are urgently looking into these reports.”