Mass burials for Philippines flood victims Officials fearful that bodies could pose health risk with more than 650 people dead and hundreds still missing.

Authorities in the Philippines are preparing mass burials to minimize
 health risks as the death toll from flash flooding caused by tropical
 storm Washi rose to more than 650 with hundreds still missing.
 The Philippine Red Cross put the death toll on the Philippines'
 southern Mindanao island at 652 with 911 others listed as still
 missing on Monday, although government officials said the figures for
 the missing may have been overstated in the post-disaster chaos.
 But hard-pressed authorities in Mindanao's port cities of Cagayan de
 Oro and Iligan, where villagers were swept to sea as they slept in
 coastal slums, were struggling to cope with the devastation left by
 tropical storm Washi.
 "Today we will dig a mass grave and bury the unclaimed bodies as well
 as those in an advanced state of decomposition," Lawrence Cruz, mayor
 of Iligan, 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.
 Television footage from an Iligan mortuary showed a corridor lined
 withbodies awaiting burial, wrapped in white plastic bags bound
 tightly with tan-coloured packaging tape.
 About 47,000 evacuees are now huddled in evacuation centers in Washi's
 wake, mostly on the northern coast of Mindanao, a vast
 poverty-stricken island where Islamic separatists have battled against
 authorities for decades.
 Rescue and relief efforts were being  spearheaded by government troops
 normally assigned to fight rebels elsewhere on the island.
 Many more missing
 The Philippine health department has so far certified 533 deaths from
 the disaster, said the national disaster council's executive director
 Benito Ramos.
 At least 239 others are missing, the council said in its latest update.
 President Benigno Aquino is set to visit the disaster zone on Tuesday
 after ordering a review of the country's disaster defenses .
 Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Catholic Church, prayed for the
 victims of the latest natural disaster to hit the largely Roman
 Catholic archipelago, which is also prone to earthquakes and volcanic
 eruptions.
 The US offered assistance as Manila appealed for help to feed, clothe
 and house the thousands sheltering in evacuation centers, including
 many residents of shanty towns whose makeshift homes were destroyed by
 the storm.
 Ramos, the disaster agency chief, said most of the victims were
 "informal settlers" - a term used for shanty town residents who are
 often unregistered by authorities.
 One month's worth of normal rain fell in the affected area within a
 24-hour period but residents, who were normally spared from typhoons
 that regularly hit other regions of the Philippines, ignored warnings
 to move to safe ground.
 Authorities likened tropical storm Washi to Ketsana, one of the
 country's most devastating storms which dumped huge amounts of rain on
 Manila and other parts of the country in 2009, killing more than 460
 people.
 
 Isaiah 28:2
 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest
 of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters
 overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
 
 Jeremiah 47:2
 Thus saith the LORD; Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and
 shall be an overflowing flood , and shall overflow the land, and all
 that is therein; the city, and them that dwell therein: then the men
 shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.
 
 Nahum 1:8
 But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place
 thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.