Aaron

4 more bodies recovered in deadly poll-related incident

MANILA - The death toll from the savage political massacre in Maguindanao rose to 46 on Tuesday, as President Arroyo placed the area under an indefinite state of emergency.

Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina told reporters in Manila that 24 bodies had been recovered on Tuesday, on top of 22 that had been found on Monday.

Regional police commander Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna described a grisly search operation along an unpaved road in the isolated rural village of Saniag, saying 17 bodies had been pulled from just one grave.

"They were piled on top of each other. It looked as if they were buried hurriedly," he told reporters from the scene.

The scale of Monday's massacre, as well as the targeting of apparently unrelated people, has shocked and deeply angered the country.

Fourteen of the victims were women and some of them were journalists with no apparent links to the clan war, the police and military said when the death toll stood at 22.

PNP chief Jesus Verzosa, who flew to the south to supervise the investigation, said he feared the death toll could rise with several other members of the kidnapped party of more than 40 people still missing.

"We still have to check one other suspected mass grave," he added.

Journalists on the scene said a mechanical digger was emblazoned with the name of the Maguindanao provincial governor, Andal Ampatuan, whose bodyguards had been blamed by the military as being behind the massacre.