Over a hundred more bodies were recovered on Christmas day, Sunday, with some washing ashore more than a hundred kilometers from where they disappeared on December 17, after the government expanded retrieval operations for victims of tropical storm Sendong.
Emergency workers working through the holidays have recovered corpses as far as Oroquieta City and Jimenez in Misamis Occidental, across Iligan Bay from devastated Iligan City, and Camiguin Island, north of Cagayan de Oro, which suffered the greatest number of fatalities.
The death toll from the storm rose to 1,236 on Sunday afternoon as authorities continued to fish out more bodies from the water throughout the day, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) executive director Benito Ramos said.
“We will continue the retrieval operations… We will pursue it as long as it takes,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Ramos added that authorities may have to call off the search if they fail to recover more bodies for three consecutive days.
A total of 1,079 persons remain missing after Sendong ravaged last weekend portions of Northern Mindanao, particularly the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, based on latest records from the NDRRMC.
Military and police forces are currently working with a number of agencies and even local fishermen to retrieve more bodies, Ramos said.
More months in evacuation centers
The NDRRMC chief likewise said that evacuees may remain homeless for three to five months while the local government builds new shelter for them.
“We have to sustain them for the period of three, four, five months before the core shelters are built... It will take some time,” Ramos said.
He added that local officials from Iligan City have yet to find a relocation site for residents affected by Sendong.
“They have yet to identify a relocation area here because there are certain requirements like it should not be a landslide prone area because Iligan City is a mountainous area…In a few days, we hope we can identify one,” said Ramos.
Ramos further said that a six-hectare relocation site has already been identified for affected families from Cagayan de Oro, but the construction of shelters on the site may take several months.
The NDRRMC currently pegs the number of families affected by Sendong at 108,798. Over 39,000 houses and P1.08-billion worth of properties were destroyed due to the storm, according to the agency. - Andreo C. Calonzo/KBK/HS, GMA News
Emergency workers working through the holidays have recovered corpses as far as Oroquieta City and Jimenez in Misamis Occidental, across Iligan Bay from devastated Iligan City, and Camiguin Island, north of Cagayan de Oro, which suffered the greatest number of fatalities.
The death toll from the storm rose to 1,236 on Sunday afternoon as authorities continued to fish out more bodies from the water throughout the day, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) executive director Benito Ramos said.
“We will continue the retrieval operations… We will pursue it as long as it takes,” he told reporters on Sunday.
Ramos added that authorities may have to call off the search if they fail to recover more bodies for three consecutive days.
A total of 1,079 persons remain missing after Sendong ravaged last weekend portions of Northern Mindanao, particularly the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, based on latest records from the NDRRMC.
Military and police forces are currently working with a number of agencies and even local fishermen to retrieve more bodies, Ramos said.
More months in evacuation centers
The NDRRMC chief likewise said that evacuees may remain homeless for three to five months while the local government builds new shelter for them.
“We have to sustain them for the period of three, four, five months before the core shelters are built... It will take some time,” Ramos said.
He added that local officials from Iligan City have yet to find a relocation site for residents affected by Sendong.
“They have yet to identify a relocation area here because there are certain requirements like it should not be a landslide prone area because Iligan City is a mountainous area…In a few days, we hope we can identify one,” said Ramos.
Ramos further said that a six-hectare relocation site has already been identified for affected families from Cagayan de Oro, but the construction of shelters on the site may take several months.
The NDRRMC currently pegs the number of families affected by Sendong at 108,798. Over 39,000 houses and P1.08-billion worth of properties were destroyed due to the storm, according to the agency. - Andreo C. Calonzo/KBK/HS, GMA News