2 years after Haiyan, dead still being dug up in Philippines

MANILA: Villagers who perished when Typhoon Haiyan devastated the central Philippines two years ago continue to be dug up, including the skeletal remains of six people found over the weekend, an official said Sunday.
Regarded as the most powerful storm on record to hit land, Haiyan leveled entire villages and swept walls of seawater along with ships surging inland in Tacloban city and other outlying towns on Nov. 8, 2013, leaving 7,361 people dead or missing based on the latest government count last year.
More than a million houses were damaged or blasted away by the storm’s enormous force, displacing about 4 million people.
Most of the skeletons, including that of a child, were found by residents on Saturday in Tacloban’s coastal village of San Jose, where storm surges swept away houses and people, the city’s chief health officer Joedina Gumagay said.
Along with police forensic investigators and other officials, Gumagay said she examined the skeletons, which were found with pieces of clothing, sandals and other belongings, and concluded they were among the thousands killed in the storm.
Villagers in another Tacloban community dug up another victim, an unidentified woman, about two months ago, she said.
A Catholic priest blessed the skeletons found in San Jose. After being photographed and tagged, the remains were to be buried in a mass grave for typhoon victims on Sunday, coinciding with the second anniversary of Haiyan’s deadly onslaught, she said.
“We feel relieved that at least they can now have a decent burial,” Gumagay said.
Thousands of typhoon survivors, many of them teary-eyed, heard Masses in Catholic churches before joining a memorial march to a seaside sports stadium that had served as an evacuation center after the storm struck. Residents in Tacloban and three nearby towns lit thousands of candles along roads Sunday night to remember the dead.
President Benigno Aquino III thanked governments that provided aid and deployed forces, planes and ships to help the Philippines deal with the disaster.
The devastated communities have been rebuilt and “are once again working to have a safer and prosperous future,” Aquino said. “This would not have been possible without the world’s embrace of our people and our people’s own heroic generosity and sacrifice.”