In Iligan, rebuilding lives much more difficult

ILIGAN CITY—The city could economically recover from the devastation that Tropical Storm “Sendong” wrought on the local economy in about three months but the return to normal of residents’ lives would surely take longer than that, the city government said.

Melvin Anggot, city information officer, said the city could quickly get back on its feet as repair of damaged infrastructures was ongoing.

He said the P60-million fund that President Aquino gave during his visit here helped speed up the repair work.

Anggot said repairing damaged facilities was easier than rebuilding lives of residents, especially those who lost their loved ones in the country’s worst disaster in recent years.

Uprooted

Thousands of residents have been uprooted and are now in evacuation centers although Anggot said the city government was preparing a permanent relocation site.

The city government, he said, planned to move out displaced residents from the evacuation centers to their new homes by New Year or in the first weeks of January.

“The houses can be rebuilt but the psychological and emotional impact of the disaster was difficult to deal with,” he said.

As of Monday, 400 people had been confirmed dead in the floods with the retrieval of 14 more bodies in Kolambugan, Lanao del Norte, and 16 other drowning victims in Oroquieta City in Misamis Occidental.

“The death toll is continuously increasing every day. We believe that there are some victims still not retrieved more than a week since the floods hit the city,” Anggot said.

Hundreds of volunteers continued to search for bodies buried in the thick mud or washed ashore.

No more survivors

“We had given up hope of finding anymore survivors. Our thrust now is to find and retrieve other drowning victims,” Anggot said.

In Cagayan de Oro City, residents of the second congressional district, who were displaced by the floods, may have to spend two more months in the so-called tent cities before they can move to their new homes, which were being built by the government.

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said the construction of the houses for Sendong victims might be finished in February. Tito N. Fiel and JB R. Deveza, Inquirer Mindanao