Haiti was lacking enough body bags to handle the large number of casualties from the massive earthquake which struck the country this week, the United Nations said Friday.
"The scale of the disaster has overwhelmed all capacity," said Paul Garwood with the World Health Organization, adding that this included body bags, DPA reported.
The WHO advised digging "shallow ditches" to cover bodies if this was needed but Garwood told reporters in Geneva that "we do not recommend mass graves."
There was no public health risk associated with dead bodied in the community, the WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have said, though the psychological impact could be intense.
"There is a widespread myth that dead bodies may be the cause of epidemics in natural disasters. This is not the case," ICRC forensic expert Ute Hofmeister said.
"Hasty and uncoordinated disposal of the bodies, for example in mass graves or by cremation, should be avoided at all cost, as that would make it impossible to identify the bodies later and to inform the families," the Red Cross expert said.
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