DUERO. – Exactly a month Monday, stories of trauma, ordeal, dead or missing persons and even those considered heroes in the aftermath of tropical storm “Sendong” that devastated northern Mindanao provinces and cities, still occupied prominent treatment in news pages. Proof of this reality, was the discovery of the decaying human remains believed to be victim of the Cagayan de Oro disaster was drifted here almost a month after “Sendong” wrought havoc in this city and neighboring Iligan. Dr. Victor Alan Torrefranca, municipal health officer of this town, confirmed this floating corpse in a decomposing state. The dead body washed ashore along barangay Alejawan. But he, not even the local residents, could not identify the cadaver. He said they can only speculate that it could be one of those typhoon victims of Cagayan de Oro, he said in an exclusive interview. He said they couldn’t do otherwise and upon instruction of Mayor Cornelius Ocay, the corpse was immediately buried here. He added that the body could be autopsied by the authorities concerned if needed to determine his identity or for purposes of relatives claiming it.

There are other unconfirmed reports that dead bodies drifted ashore in some nearby towns. Some of the typhoon victims and survivors drifted as far as Camiguin island-province, said a tourist van driver in an interview at Benoni port, Mahinog town. This was collaborated by residents here. Printed materials of faces of those missing are scattered, given out and littered around the city’s sidewalks and evacuation centers in the hope that information might reach the concerned relatives. A survivor of the typhoon, whose family still struggling inside the jam-packed gym of City Central School of CDO, told this writer in an interview, that a three-month-old baby was saved by a fisherman in Opol town, about eight kms. from CDO. She said that the mother of the baby decided to put him in a styro foam and wrapped him in a plastic and let him drift away because she could not save him anymore as she herself was struggling to survive the rampaging floodwaters. She wrote the name of her baby in the wrapper. Days after, the mother survived and the baby was found by the fisherman who thought the wrapped plastic was just something washed away only to find out that she the baby wrapped in plastic. The mother and baby were reunited following the help of the rescuers. (RVO)