Bodies were piled into mass graves in the belief that burial would ward off disease. ... But Dana Van Alphan of the Pan American Health Organization issued a statement declaring there was no danger of corpses contaminating water or soil because bacteria and viruses cannot survive in dead bodies. The organization said it issued the statement, hoping to avert mass burials of tens of thousands of unidentified victims.Botulism. Flies, and fly-borne diseases. Ar these people out of their minds. Clearly the world's elite wants to ID the bodies of the elite, but why do they risk the lifes of the poor, the greiving and ruined to do so?Van Alphan said it was important for survivors to be allowed to identify loved ones and urged authorities in tsunami-stricken countries to avoid burying unidentified corpses in mass graves.
"I think that psychologically, people have to be given the chance to identify their family members," she said. "Whatever disease the person has while still alive poses no threat to public health in a corpse." The World Health Organization has also said dead bodies are not an immedieate threat to health.
"The health hazard associated with dead bodies is negligible. The collection, disposal, burying and/or cremation of corpses requires important human and material resources which should instead be allocated to those who survived and remain in critical condition," the organization said in a news release after the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. "
Botulism would be a stretch, but cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever, the plague, massive staph, tetanus, strep and E. coli infections along with every horrific illness known to man would seem to be at high risk here.
Also "elite" loss of life, that is if you are referring to wealthier Western vacationers, is far less than the poor.