11 dead in Mindanao, Visayas floods

Vehicles and residents are stranded in the city center of Cagayan de Oro on Monday night after floodwater started rising following heavy rain. —JIGGER JERUSALEM

Eleven people, including eight children, died in floods that sent thousands of families fleeing their homes in Northern Mindanao region and parts of the Visayas as heavy rains hit these areas on Monday, reports from the police and disaster response agencies in these areas said.

But Malacañang, on Tuesday, said the situation in the flooded areas in Northern Mindanao was “manageable” and did not demand the intervention of the national government.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella assured the public that concerned government agencies were attending to the needs of displaced residents in Cagayan de Oro City and other affected areas.

“(The) government is doing everything to ensure that things go back to normal especially now that the weather is improving and (the) roads are again passable,” Abella said in a statement.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development, he said, has started distributing relief goods to affected families in Northern Mindanao.

The military helped transport families to 53 evacuation centers in Misamis Oriental. In its report to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Army’s 4th Infantry Division said major roads in Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro City are now passable to all types of vehicles.

In Zamboanga del Norte province, two children earlier reported missing in Roxas town were found dead, said Senior Supt. Edwin Wagan, provincial police director.

The Sapang Dalaga municipal disaster risk reduction and management council reported two still unidentified fatalities, including a girl between 8 and 12 years old found on the shores of Barangay San Antonio in Manukan town, Wagan said.

In the Visayas, at least 61 villages in the Visayan provinces of Capiz, Bohol and Leyte had been submerged in floodwater since Monday following heavy rains.

Affected were 53 villages in nine Capiz towns, eight in Loboc town in Bohol, eight towns and the city of Tacloban in Leyte, reports said.

In Cebu province, 4-year-old Aileen Rose Paquit was sleeping with her mother inside their shanty in Barangay Patag, a mountain village 10 km away from the Naga City center, when they were swept away by a flash flood at 7 a.m. on Monday. The girl died while being taken to the Naga City Hall, where a doctor was waiting.

In Northern Mindanao, at least four of the six people killed in the floods were children, including Jaime Chan, 3, of Gingoog City; Kian Montecino, 10, of Opol town; and CJ Lapuz, 7, of Magsaysay town; and Renny Boy Cabido, 14, of Cagayan de Oro.

At the height of heavy rains on Monday night, some 122 families left their homes and stayed in five evacuation centers in Iligan City after the city government ordered preemptive evacuation for those living along riverbanks.

As of 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, 2,999 families (12,452 people) had moved out of their homes to escape the rampaging water as flash floods damaged houses in many areas of Northern Mindanao.

In Misamis Oriental, Fernando Dy, officer in charge of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said 1,654 families were evacuated on Monday night.

But as of Tuesday morning, about 80 percent of them had returned to their homes.

In Cagayan de Oro City, 1,345 families (5,625 people) left their  homes and stayed in evacuation centers, said Maricel Rivera, city information officer.

On Tuesday, the respective councils of Cagayan de Oro City and Lugait town in Misamis Oriental placed these under a state of calamity.

At the state-run University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (USTSP) in Cagayan de Oro, about 1,000 students were stranded in classrooms as most of the campus was flooded on Monday night.

Nef Luczon, a USTSP faculty member, said floodwater inside the campus began to rise at 3 p.m. on Monday.

At 11 p.m., when the rain stopped and the floodwater started to recede, rescue boats brought in food before evacuating the students to safety. Rescuers continued the evacuation until Tuesday morning. —REPORTS FROM JIGGER JERUSALEM, RYAN ROSAURO, DORIS BONGCAC, JOEY A. GABIETA, LEO UDTOHAN, NESTOR P. BURGOS JR., MICHELLE PADAYHAG, MARLON RAMOS AND CYNTHIA BALANA