Hello,
usually right-wingers speak of 50,000 dead, others of 25,000 - bad enough regardless which numbers exactly. According to some reports the city was full of displaced persons and german civilian fugitives, which may not have been counted. At a certain temperature like in this firestorm, there will not even bones be left.
A theory of the reason of this late bombing is that Churchill had a special hate against Dresden, since this name was one symbol of an audacity as he saw it, when the german cruiser "
Dresden" escaped and managed to hide for months - along with the Gallipoli failure and the U-boats underestimated by him this lead to his dismissal as the 1st sealord, in WW1.
Only a theory i know, but apart from generally hating Germany he was a very vengeful fellow, taking lots of things personally
Greetings,
Catfish