DOH stresses need for immediate burial of Yolanda victims

MANILA, Philippines - Forensic experts from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are cutting short their vacation to attend to the thousands of corpses rotting in the open in Tacloban City, two months after the devastation of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

This was according to Health Secretary Enrique Ona, who revealed they were making arrangements with the Department of Justice for the immediate resumption of processing of the bodies. The NBI is under the DOJ.

“This has been discussed with them. I hope as soon as possible they will go back there. We want the bodies to be buried soon,” Ona said in a telephone interview.

The corpses are being processed by NBI for possible identification by their relatives before they are buried in mass graves. The NBI procedures generally involve the collection of DNA samples from the victims.

Ona said more forensic experts would be dispatched to the calamity zone to speed up the identification and burial processes.

He reiterated that while dead bodies themselves do not pose a health hazard, they have to be buried as soon as possible so that they don’t contaminate water supply or get eaten by stray animals.

The onslaught of Yolanda left more than 6,000 people dead and close to 2,000 missing, based on official estimates.