Traumatized City in the Philippines Begins to Bury Its Dead

TACLOBAN, the Philippines — Pausing occasionally to dodge driving rains by hiding under loose scraps of plywood, a group of firefighters lowered unidentified bodies into a mass grave here Thursday, six days after the city was largely destroyed in Typhoon Haiyan.  or days, the bodies had sat in public. First they were uncovered on roadsides; then they were placed in body bags. After that, they were collected, and nearly 200 were stored at the biggest site, a government office. In the nearby City Hall, the center of local government relief efforts, the stench from the bodies could be powerful when the wind blew off the harbor.

“What we are doing is a little bit late,” said Alfred S. Romualdez, the mayor of Tacloban. He blamed the national government for widespread delays of burials and the distribution of food, water and basic relief supplies.

“I appreciate the boats coming in, the planes coming in,” he said. “But what we need are foot soldiers, times 10 of what you see now.”

The official death toll for Tacloban City rose to 2,000 on Thursday, but that covers only bodies that have been collected or visually confirmed by authorized officials. The visually confirmed bodies are those readily visible from roadsides, as relief crews have yet to start digging through towering piles of debris, much of it studded with nails.More info and pics - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/world/asia/tacloban-philippines-typhoon-haiyan.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0