Claudia Zobel’s corpse remains intact after nearly 30 years

CEBU CITY , Philippines   â€“ Despite nearly 30 years of being buried, the corpse of Cebuana actress Claudia Zobel remains intact as though it was just interred recently.

Families and friends of the late sexy star, whose real name is Thelma Maloloy-on, were surprised to see her body still intact when it was exhumed at the Queen City Memorial Gardens here last Tuesday.

Clad in a white and yellow dress, Zobel looked like a statue, her face white with pinkish mark on her chin, apparently the smudge from her lipstick. There were no signs of decay in her face and body, which lay in a stone casket that had a wooden interior.

Zobel was just 18 years old when she died in a car collision in Makati City on Feb. 10, 1984. She would have turned 47 this year.

Zobel’s elder brother, Ernesto Maloloy-on, 57, said they had to exhume her body to supposedly have her skeletons placed in the coffin of their 75-year-old father who died of cardiac arrest and was set to be buried yesterday.

Rey Sereso, a gravedigger for 30 years now, nevertheless said this is not the first time they had exhumed a corpse that was still intact.

Dr. Nestor Sator, a medico-legal officer at the Region 7 police crime laboratory, said a person’s corpse becomes mummified because of several factors like heat exposure, the type of soil where it is buried, and the type of casket used.

Sator told The Freeman that a body buried in sandy soil will be most likely become mummified since there will be insufficient moisture that will enter the casket. Moist contributes to the growth of bacteria, leading to decomposition.

“If it’s hot and sandy, there is less moisture and no bacteria, making the body dehydrated and leading to mummification,” Sator said.

Another factor is an extra sealed casket that prevents water from entering and preserves the corpse.

“Water (makes) decomposition (faster) due to bacteria and if there is no leaking of water, then the body will be preserved,” he said, adding that clean and good embalming could also preserve a corpse due to less contaminants.

Sator said in tropical countries like the Philippines, cases like that of Zobel’s corpse are expected.

“We can consider it as a natural process of nature,” he said.        – Freeman News Service