Floods displace tent city evacuees

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY —Floods forced the evacuation of evacuees at a tent city here built on what residents said was a flood-prone area.

Among the families forced to move out of their temporary homes was that of Richard Uayon.

As they prepared to go to sleep last Monday, Richard found the family belongings in one of the tents wet.

It has been raining since Monday afternoon and the ground where the tents were pitched was turning muddy, according to Richard.

By 11 p.m., floodwaters started to enter the tents, he said.

The first thing he wanted to save, according to Richard, was the sack of rice his family received from donors. He and his wife, Irene, and their 3-year-old daughter had to move to a covered court spared by the flooding.

The Uayons were able to save a bag of donated clothes that had been drenched in the flood.

They arrived in Tent City 2, an evacuee community living in Shelter Box tents, last Feb. 6. They initially sought shelter at the West City Central School, which was transformed into an evacuation center following the Dec. 17 disaster here that killed nearly 2,000 people in this city and Iligan City.

It was the city government that identified the site for Tent City 2. The transfer of evacuees there was recommended by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Members of tribal communities living near the Tent City 2 site, however, had warned of flooding in the area, according to Richard’s wife, Irene.

“The lumad told us that floodwaters could reach up to knee-high during continuous rain,” she said.

Joshua Taboclaon, barangay chair of Canitoan, said people panicked when the floodwaters rushed into the tents.

The floods reached the tents, he said, because there was no time to dig trenches or canals around the tent site to divert rainwater away from the community of evacuees.

John Barsopia, an evacuee in Tent Ciy 2, said at least 250 families live in the site. Eleven of these families took shelter in the covered court, while some transferred to a DSWD shelter nearby.

Some evacuees were taken in by their friends in nearby Tent City 1, which also suffered from heavy rains recently.

Some residents of Tent City 1 said foreign volunteers helped them build trenches around the tent to prevent flood from entering the tents.

Some evacuees expressed longing to be transferred to a safer location.

“We were told that it would take six to eight months before we can move into the permanent resettlement site,” said Irene. “They have to transfer us to a safer area,” she said. Cai Panlilio, Inquirer Mindanao