CEBU CITY, Philippines – The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) provided Filipino authorities with the 70th DNA- based identification yesterday in its on-going effort to help identify the victims of Typhoon Frank.

ICMP experts deployed rapidly to the Philippines, at INTERPOL’s request, in the wake of the disaster and they have been operating in Cebu City with Interpol and Filipino authorities from the National Bureau of Investigations to identify the bodies of victims of the disaster.
It is estimated that over 1,300 persons were unaccounted for as a consequence of the typhoon, which struck the region on 21 June. Of that number, approximately 866 persons were missing from the 24,000-ton ferry MV Princess of the Stars and an estimated 500 other people were missing from…

Ten families of victims of the Philippines ferry disaster claimed their bodies at a ceremony on Sunday following the release of the first DNA identifications. The event was attended by local officials and by members of INTERPOL’s Incident Response Team (IRT) and the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) undertaking the forensic work.

The INTERPOL team, which includes Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) experts and a representative from the ICMP, has been working with Philippines authorities to identify the bodies of some 800 people drowned when the Princess of the Stars ferry capsized in a typhoon on 21 June.
More than 300 bodies were initially recovered from the sea after the typhoon and 40 of these have so far been identified using fingerprints, dental records and other traditional methods excluding DNA. At least several hundred more bodies are still trapped in the capsized ferry and a complex salvage operation is underway to…