Tacloban - Gunshots forced the delay on Wednesday of a mass burial of victims of the huge typhoon that smashed into the Philippines, the mayor of the badly-affected city of Tacloban told AFP.
“We had finished digging the mass burial site. We had the truck loaded with bodies...but...there was some shooting....they could not proceed,” Alfred Romualdez said.
Forensics officers “were with them. But on their way there, they were asked to go back by the security escorts,” he said.
“They were ordered to turn around by the (police).”
The delay is a further setback to authorities' efforts to remove the scores of bodies that still litter streets in the areas worst hit by the enormous storm last Friday.
Doctors are warning that in the tropical heat of the Philippines, the bodies will soon become a source of disease.
Correspondents in the area report the smell of corpses hanging in the air while an official said the recovery of bodies had stopped because they “ran out of bags”. - AFP