TEMPORARY SHELTER. Displaced residents of Oroquieta City make do with a government gym as their temporary shelter. Over 2,000 families lost their homes to two days of flooding beginning on Christmas Day.
OROQUIETA CITY—The local government of this provincial capital of Misamis Occidental has sounded the alarm about a food shortage owing to the devastating floods that swamped the city for two days, starting Christmas Day.
“There is a shortage of food [here],” Mayor Lemuel Meyrick Acosta said in a statement posted on social media on Thursday.
Acosta observed that most stores in the city, where people could get their supply of food and other basic items, had yet to reopen.
On Wednesday, only one grocery store opened, along with two pharmacies and a bank, he said.
The usual hustle and bustle in the city’s commercial district, which has still traces of mud, is absent on Thursday, especially since the public market is also closed for cleanup.
Vendors temporarily set up stalls along the national highway in the urban village of Lower Langcangan. “Our commercial district is heavily affected [by the floods],” Acosta said, vowing to prioritize the cleanup and the full restoration of the electricity supply.
On Thursday afternoon, Acosta announced that electricity had been restored in Poblacion 2, which hosts part of the city’s commercial establishments.
But the mayor clarified that the local government could not impose on store owners when they would reopen for business.
If this situation persists, the city has already planned on operating mobile stores, in partnership with the provincial government and the Department of Trade and Industry, so the people’s needs can be served, he said.
‘Overwhelmed’
The mobile stores, according to Acosta, will sell basic commodities such as rice and canned goods, and hopefully fresh meat.
Amid the tight food supply, Acosta appealed to residents to avoid panic buying so others could also buy goods.
Acosta admitted that the local government lacked enough supply of relief packs as it never expected this scale of disaster to happen in the city that is home to more than 72,000 people.
He said the city’s suppliers were not able to replenish their inventory of relief goods as most of them reeled from the impact of the floods.
Because of this situation, Acosta asked for patience from residents. “We cannot cover every inch of the ground, that is why we are prioritizing,” he said.
He said the priority is the 8,111 people from 2,251 families who took shelter in 46 evacuation centers because they no longer have houses to return to. A community kitchen has been set up for these evacuees.
“We were overwhelmed by the situation,” he said, noting that in previous similar incidents, only two or three villages were affected.
This week’s floods submerged at least 20 villages, especially those in the urban center.
“Our resources were overstretched,” Acosta said. “We are overwhelmed by the gravity of the damage.”
Death toll up
In Manila, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) said the number of fatalities due to the continued rains across the nation since the Christmas weekend had risen to 32.
In a report on Thursday, the NDRRMC recorded 18 deaths in Northern Mindanao, six in Bicol, four in Zamboanga Peninsula, three in Eastern Visayas and one in Caraga. Most of the fatalities drowned as floodwaters swamped communities.
The NDRRMC said 24 people were still missing.
Over P10 million worth of relief assistance had been provided to several areas affected by the heavy flooding according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
It said several agency officials went to Gingoog City in Misamis Oriental province on Wednesday to supervise the distribution of financial assistance to an initial batch of 1,000 families affected by the widespread flooding. —WITH REPORTS FROM DEXTER CABALZA AND DEMPSEY REYES INQ
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