ANOTHER body was found floating near Lauis Ledge off Talisay City yesterday, believed to be a casualty in the ship collision last Aug. 16.
This brings to 116 the number of people who died in the maritime accident.
Twenty-one other passengers and crew members of MV St. Thomas Aquinas remain missing as of yesterday.
Also yesterday, Cebu City officials announced that the bodies of 45 unidentified casualties will be buried during a mass burial at the public cemetery in Barangay Carreta on Sept. 25.
Engineer Bong Ebo of the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes was tasked to draft the design of the burial site.
The bodies will be buried in a four-level structure with several niches. It will stand on a 20-square-meter lot at the Carreta cemetery, which is owned by the Archdiocese of Cebu.
2Go Shipping, owner and operator of MV Thomas Aquinas, will shoulder the burial expenses.
Ebo said the construction of the niche will start next week and will be completed in five days.
It was Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s first day back at the regular command conference on the ship collision since he left for Taiwan last Friday.
He announced that Gov. Hilario Davide III and Talisay City Mayor Johnny V. de los Reyes already confirmed their attendance during the mass burial.
A gun salute will honor the victims.
Meanwhile, operations to siphon oil from the sunken MV St. Thomas Aquinas started yesterday morning.
As of 5 p.m., Malayan Towage was still drilling three tanks.
Philippine Coast Guard Cebu Station Commander Weniel Azcuna said it would be difficult to determine the amount of oil that has been siphoned. But if operations go as scheduled, the remaining oil would have been completely recovered by Sept. 30, he said.