SWEPT AWAY Responders gather the dead in the village of Pilar in Abuyog town, one of several localities in Leyte province severely affected by Tropical Storm “Agaton” (international name: Megi) last week. —AFP
TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte, Philippines — She was supposed to return home to Baybay City in Leyte the next day, after finishing an important errand in the provincial capital of Tacloban on April 9.
Instead, Estella Flandez, 25, followed the advice of her mother, Arcenia, 66, who was in Baybay, to just let the storm pass so she would be safe.
But days after the worst of Tropical Storm Agaton (international name: Megi) was over, as authorities began to reckon with the high number of casualties left in its wake, Estella would learn what had happened that Sunday, when the storm made landfall in the province of Eastern Samar.
The village of Kantagnos in Baybay where she and her family lived was nearly wiped out by a landslide at the height of Agaton. Estella would later find out that her husband, Lemuel, 38; nephew, Lindel, 4; and niece, Ennaria, 12, had perished.
A week after that fateful Sunday, her mother, Arcenia; sisters Angelie, 36, and Mylene, 24; and brother, Edwin, 45, remained missing.
But another sister, Edelyn, 28, survived, together with Edelyn’s son, Bengielim, who just turned 11 on Good Friday.
Mother and son are still confined in a hospital in Ormoc City for treatment of injuries that they incurred as they fled from the landslide.
Bengielim remembered hearing a loud bang outside their house at about 5 a.m. then being thrown out by a torrent of mud, water and rocks, while his mother was swept away by that tumult.
But soon enough they found each other and would later be brought to safety by rescuers.
“This is the first time that this kind of tragedy happened in our village. When [Super]typhoon “Odette” (Rai) hit our village [in December last year], we never had a landslide,” said Bengielim’s aunt Estella, who still expressed hope that her mother and other family members missing would be found.
Drowned in flash floods
According to disaster relief officials in Baybay, there were 50 fatalities in Kantagnos—about half the 106 people so far reported dead throughout the city.
On Saturday, a week after the storm entered the Philippine area of responsibility, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported 167 deaths, including 11 from Western Visayas, three from the Davao region and two from Central Visayas.
Most of those confirmed dead had drowned as they were washed away by flash floods. Of the 110 reported missing, 104 were from Eastern Visayas, five from Western Visayas and one was from the Davao region.
The NDRRMC said Agaton affected 562,548 families — or almost 2 million individuals — in nine out of the 17 regions in the country.
The agency also reported 348,359 displaced by the storm, with 209,162 still staying in 959 evacuation centers.
Many areas in the Visayas as well as Bicol and Northern Mindanao were inundated in the four days that the storm was in the country since last Sunday.
Sixteen cities and municipalities in Western Visayas and the Davao and Caraga regions declared a state of calamity, the NDRRMC said.
It also placed damage to infrastructure at P6.95 million so far, and damage to agriculture at P242.24 million, with a total of 7,377 hectares of crops destroyed by strong winds and flash floods.
But the Department of Agriculture reported four days earlier, on April 12, a higher estimated damage to agriculture at P265.3 million.
‘Long, long process’
President Rodrigo Duterte promised to build new houses for the displaced families in Baybay when he visited the city on Friday, accompanied by Leyte Gov. Leopoldo Dominico Petilla and city officials led by Baybay Mayor Jose Carlos Cari.
After an aerial inspection of the province, he addressed residents who were gathered at Baybay City Senior High School.“[T]o all of you who lost their houses in the typhoon, you will be given a new house but it would be a long, long process. It’s not like there’s just a miracle. But the government will help you resettle first,” Duterte said. He added “There are no lands left because these lands have owners already. But we’ll find a flatland somewhere far away, safe from the dangers of the countryside. If not, the government will exercise its power of eminent domain.”
“There’s only two months left of my presidency, so I won’t be able to do much to help you. But what I can assure you is that I will help make sure that preparations will be in place to help give you new houses,” Duterte also said.
—WITH A REPORT FROM NESTOR A. CORRALES
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