CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines (PNA) – Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma is making an urgent apeal to the faithful here to extend any kind of help to the families in Northern Mindanao suffering as a result of flash floods unleashed by tropical storm "Sendong."

The Cebu City government and the Cebu provincial government will also send basic needs and cash aid to the residents of areas most severely hit by the floods, that is, in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and other localities.

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia said the provincial government will immediately send basic needs, like bottled water and canned goods.

She thanked businessman Charles Robert Gothong, president of Gothong Southern shipping for offering to ship relief goods to the afflicted areas for free.

Garcia said cash assistance from the province will follow, as soon as the Cebu Provincial Social Welfare Office determines how much to send.

The Cebu city government vowed to give at least P5 million as financial assistance to the flood victims of Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan City and Negros Oriental.

With the death toll now estimated at close to 700, ''Sendong'' has been compared with typhoon ''Ondoy'' in 2009, which dumped huge amounts of rain on Metro Manila and killed more than 460 people.

Mayor Michael Rama announced the city’s assistance after he was assured by City Budget Officer Nelfa Briones that the city still has available funds.

The aid will be charged to an P11-million unused portion of the city’s calamity funds.

Rama said the city will also send this week its mobile morgue, through Sulpicio Lines Inc., to help the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan process the hundreds of bodies.

Cebu City Hall had received the mobile morgue from the International Police (Interpol) in 2008, for processing the bodies of those who drowned when the MV Princess of the Stars sank off Romblon during a typhoon.

Rama said he learned from Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Vicente Emano and Iligan City Vice Mayor Henry Dy and that the funeral parlors in both cities can no longer accommodate the bodies.