Officials try to identify dead

PHILIPPINES authorities yesterday began burying the dead from flash floods that have left more than 1,000 dead or missing, as President Benigno Aquino declared a national disaster.

Aquino flew to Mindanao Island to inspect the ports of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan — choked with drying mud, crumpled homes, and hundreds of decomposing corpses after being struck by tropical storm Washi at the weekend.

Two dump trucks arrived at the public cemetery in Iligan at dusk, with soldiers unloading 38 coffins of victims identified and claimed by relatives, who cried and lit candles as they witnessed the burial.