Death-toll in killer flood from Tropical Storm Washi in Philippines rises to 1249

December 28, 2011 – PHILIPPINES – The death toll from killer floods in the Philippines rose to 1,249 on Tuesday, more than a week after the disaster struck, with officials expecting more corpses to be found. The civil defense office initially said the confirmed number of fatalities had surged by more than 200 to 1,453, before revising the figure downwards due to double-counting. Civil defense Chief Benito Ramos said his National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council would no longer count the missing as no-one could give reliable figures on how many people are unaccounted for. But Ramos told AFP he was sure the death toll would continue rising as more bodies were still being retrieved from the sea off the southern island of Mindanao or found trapped beneath fallen logs and mud. Tropical Storm Washi brought heavy rains, overflowing rivers and flash floods to the southern Philippines from December 16 to 18, sweeping away whole villages built on sandbars and riverbanks. –Terra Daily