The death toll from a destructive storm that hit the southern Philippines has risen to 927 as bodies surfaced in the sea, the head of the government disaster monitoring council said today.
The death toll is expected to rise even further as more floating bodies are recovered after sunrise, said Benito Ramos, head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
He put the total of the dead at 927, adding that the council had lost count of all those still missing after tropical storm Washi brought heavy rains, flash floods and overflowing rivers to the southern island of Mindanao.
"They (the dead bodies) were washed out to sea. They were underwater for the first three days but now, in their state of decomposition, they are bloated and floating to the surface," Ramos told AFP.
"The death toll will rise again (in the morning) when more bodies surface."
The huge death toll came as government relief workers recovered more bodies from Mindanao, particularly in the devastated port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, which have borne most of the deaths from tropical storm Washi.
Whole villages perched on sandbars or...
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