As many as 150 more bodies were recovered in Iligan City on Christmas Eve, bringing the total death toll from the flash floods and landslides unleashed by Tropical Storm “Sendong” on Dec. 16-17 to over 1,200, authorities said.

“What’s sad is that the number goes up every day. The body count is now 1,236,” Benito Ramos, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said in a phone interview from Iligan City on Christmas Day.

“There’s no Christmas here in Iligan,” Ramos said.

But hope continued to spring even as tens of thousands of flood survivors queued for their Christmas meal in packed evacuation centers in the devastated city.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/117203/150-more-bodies-found-in-iligan