Heavy rain, strong winds batter parts of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat

 

COTABATO CITY—Torrential rains and strong winds that triggered flash floods and a twister battered some towns of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces and displaced about 230 families or 1,150 individuals, local officials said.

“The weather is different now, we have been experiencing excruciating heat at day and heavy and quick downpour at night,” Rolly Aquino, of the South Cotabato Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) said after strong winds swept through the town of Norala on Wednesday and Thursday.

“This is the first time that these villages experienced what the locals call twister and flash floods,” Aquino said.

He added that strong winds also battered Barangays Simsiman, Matapol, San Jose, and Liberty, all in Norala town.

Aiza Gabion-Lim, the municipal DRRMO officer, said trees and power lines were toppled due to strong winds.

Aquino said six houses were affected in Barangay San Jose, 87 in Barangay Matapol, 100 in Barangay Simsiman and two in Barangay Liberty.

Sheila Mae Solidarios, 40, a resident of Purok Paghiliugyon, Barangay Simsiman, recalled that the village first experienced strong winds followed by heavy downpour.

“Darkness engulfed our surroundings, we could not see the houses of our neighbors due to heavy downpour,” she recalled, adding that “the unusual weather phenomenon came quickly and left quickly.”

“It was really a twister, our neighbors also said it was a twister that came even if the weather is hot,” she said in the vernacular in a radio interview.

In Bagumbayan town in Sultan Kudarat, about 23 families in the low-lying areas of Barangay Poblacion evacuated due to flooding but returned to their homes after floodwaters subsided.

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