Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain have killed no less than 50 people, including in a hard-hit province within the southern Philippines where as many as 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in an enormous mudslide laden with rocks, trees and debris – officials say. he said on Saturday.
At least 42 people were swept away by raging floods and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday evening to early Friday, said Naguib Sinarimbo, interior minister of the five-province Muslim autonomous region ruled by former separatist guerrillas.
Eight other people died elsewhere within the country as Tropical Storm Nalgae hit the eastern province of Camarines Sur on Saturday, the federal government’s disaster response agency said.
But the storm’s worst impact up to now was a mudslide that buried dozens of homes housing as many as 60 people within the Kusiong tribal village in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao, Sinarimbo said by telephone, citing accounts of Kusiong villagers who survived the flash flood and avalanche muddy.
Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato, who went to the community hit by the mudslide on Saturday, said the muddy flood buried about 60 rural homes in a community area of about 5 hectares. He didn’t say what number of villagers can have been buried within the mudslide, which he described as “overwhelming.”
Sinarimbo said rescuers in Kusiong unearthed no less than 13 bodies, mostly children, on Friday and Saturday.
“This community will be our ground zero today,” he said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescuers were dispatched to accentuate search and rescue efforts. “It was hit by a torrent of rainwater with mud, rocks and trees that washed away houses,” Sinarimbo said.
The seaside village, which lies on the foot of the mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescue staff to be dispatched on Saturday to take care of one in every of the worst weather disasters to hit the south of the country in a long time, he added.
Citing reports from mayors, governors and disaster response officials, Sinarimbo said 27 people died, mostly from drownings and landslides, in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.
Authorities recalled the official death toll of 67 in Maguindanao on Friday evening after discovering double counting.
Unusually heavy rains flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains that resemble a body of water during heavy rain. Floodwaters rose rapidly in lots of low-lying villages, forcing some residents to climb onto roofs, where they were rescued by the military, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said.
The Coast Guard released photos of rescuers wading through chest-deep brownish flood water to avoid wasting elderly people and youngsters in Maguindanao. Many marshy areas haven’t been flooded for years, including the town of Cotabato, where Sinarimbo said his home was flooded.
Stormy weather across much of the country prompted the Coast Guard to impose a ban on marine travel in dangerously rough seas as tens of millions of Filipinos planned to travel over the long weekend to go to relatives’ tombs and have family reunions on All Saints’ Day within the largely Roman Catholic nation. Several domestic flights were also canceled, stranding hundreds of passengers.
Wide bands of rain in Nalgae, the sixteenth storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this 12 months, allowed it to dump rain within the south of the country whilst the storm blew further north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.
The storm hit Laguna province on Saturday night with sustained winds of 95 kilometers (59 miles) per hour and gusts of as much as 160 km/h (99 miles) northwest – south of the densely populated capital Manila, which was expected to be hit directly. until the storm turned.
Officials said greater than 158,000 people in several provinces had been evacuated away from the storm’s path.
About 20 typhoons and storms hit the Philippine archipelago yearly. It is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along much of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the country probably the most disaster-prone on the planet.
