Flood-hit Philippines

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ILIGAN, (Philippines), Dec 19 (AFP): The Philippines prepared for mass burials of flood victims Monday to minimise health risks from rotting cadavers after a cyclone disaster left hundreds dead or missing on Mindanao island. Hard-pressed authorities in the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, where villagers were swept to sea as they slept in coastal slums, are struggling to cope with the devastation left by tropical storm Washi. The Philippine Red Cross put the death toll at 652 with 911 others listed as missing on Monday but national government officials said the figures for the missing may have been overstated in the post-disaster chaos. "Today we will dig a mass grave and bury the unclaimed bodies as well as those in an advanced state of decomposition," Iligan's Mayor Lawrence Cruz said on national television. Up to 50 of about 300 bodies recovered in Iligan since Washi struck in the early hours of Saturday will be communally buried, possibly during the day, so that they do not pose a health risk, Cruz said.