[ad_1]
Flash floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain have killed at least 47 people, including in the hard-hit southern Philippine province where up to 60 villagers feared missing and submerged in rain, mud, rocks and trees, officials said Saturday.
At least 42 people were swept away by rough floodwaters, drowned or hit by mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday, said Najib Sinarimbo, interior minister of the five-province Muslim autonomous region. . Former separatist guerrillas.
The government’s disaster response agency said five people were killed elsewhere when Tropical Storm Nargay struck the eastern province of Camarin del Sur earlier on Saturday.
But the worst storm impact so far was a mudslide filled with rain, rocks and trees that buried dozens of houses, including as many as 60 people, in the Kusong tribal village of Nadu Odin Sinsut town in Maguindanao province. Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by phone, citing accounts from Kusong villagers who survived flash floods and mudslides.
Rescuers used shovels to unearth 11 bodies, mostly children, in Kusong on Friday, he said.
“This community will be our ground zero today,” Sinarimbo said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescue workers, including the military, police and volunteers, have been deployed to intensify search and rescue efforts.
The coastal village at the foot of the mountain is accessible by road, and more rescue workers could be deployed on Saturday in response to one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the country’s south in decades, he said.
Citing reports from mayors, governors and disaster relief officials, Sinarimbo said 27 people died from drowning and landslides in the town of Nadu Odin New South, 10 people in the town of Nadu Brassin South, Maguindanao Township has 5 people in Uppi Township.
The death toll in Maguindanao on Friday night stood at 67, with authorities recalling after discovering some double-counted casualties.
Army officials also reported that at least 42 people were killed by the storm in Maguindanao, and said in a statement Friday night that their troops “are working with local disaster relief teams to continue to rescue people trapped in floodwaters,” Displaced people were transported to evacuation camps in military trucks.
Unusually heavy rains flooded several towns in Maguindanao and the mountainous outlying provinces on the swampy plains. Rapidly rising floodwaters in many low-lying villages forced some residents to climb on rooftops, where they were rescued by the army, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.
The Coast Guard has released photos of rescuers wading through chest-high floodwaters to rescue elderly and children on Maguindanao Island. Many of the submerged areas have not been flooded for years, including the city of Cotabato where Sina Limbaugh said his house was flooded.
Stormy weather across swathes of the country has prompted the Coast Guard to ban sea travel in dangerously rough seas, as millions of Filipinos plan a long weekend to visit relatives’ graves and reunite with their families on Halloween. Mostly Roman Catholic countries. Several domestic flights were also canceled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Government forecaster Sam Duran said the wide rainband of Storm Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine Islands this year, allowed it to dump rain in the southern part of the country, even as the storm was blowing north. farther.
Dozens of provinces and cities, including the capital Manila, are under storm warnings and could be directly hit by the storm later Saturday, the head of the government’s weather agency, Vicente Manalo, told The Associated Press. .
Government forecasters and other officials said more than 7,000 people were evacuated protectively away from the storm’s path, which was not expected to intensify into a typhoon as it approached land.
About 20 typhoons and storms hit the Philippine Islands each year. It sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an area of ​​much of the Pacific coast where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are frequent, making the country one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world.
[ad_2]
Source link