INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
TACLOBAN CITY—Authorities on Thursday began burying at the Suhi public cemetery 272 bodies in black bags left lying on the ground for over a month.
The burial of the first batch of 45 of the unclaimed and unidentified bodies took place after DNA samples as well as other identification materials, like clothing, were taken from the bodies, said Dr. Bubi Arce, head of the city government’s Task Force Cadaver.
The corpses were classified as “unprocessed” and were each given a tag and a number as they were buried under the supervision of forensic experts and personnel of the National Bureau of Investigation.
Weather
The unburied corpses were among 650 victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” that were placed on the grounds of a barangay (village) health center in Suhi, 13 kilometers from the city proper, in the first week of December. Those that had been identified were buried earlier.
Dr. Siobhan Ruddel of the World Health Organization said the burial of the 272 bodies might take a week, depending on the weather. The city has been experiencing rainy weather for weeks now.
Last rites
A group of men, wearing gloves and raincoats, carried the bodies and lined them in a 40-meter hole 4.5 meters deep. Ruddel, mindful of the culture and in a show of respect to the dead and their families, asked a priest to say the last rites at the temporary gravesite before a payloader covered the grave with mud.
More than 2,000 were declared dead while about a thousand remained missing in Tacloban City, considered to be Yolanda’s Ground Zero.—Joey Gabieta
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