SUBMERGED An aerial shot taken from a Philippine Army helicopter by a Davao de Oro Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office personnel on Saturday shows the extent of the damage caused by floods in the town of Monkayo of the province. —PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DAVAO DE ORO PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT
DAVAO CITY—The number of lives claimed by the floods and landslides that hit the Davao region since last week has risen to 16, as local officials hurried to deal with the destruction that the torrential rains had wrought on farmlands and government and private properties.
A family of four and a couple were buried in separate landslides that occurred in two sitios (subvillages) of Barangay Gupitan, Kapalong town, of Davao del Norte province amid continuous rains spawned by the trough of the low pressure area that displaced thousands of people over the weekend.
Another man was first reported missing on Thursday but his body was found two days after at least 40 people were thrown off a hanging bridge destroyed by rampaging river water in Sitio Taguango, Barangay Sua-on, also of Kapalong, bringing to 16 the death toll of the new round of flooding and landslides that hit the Davao region.
On Saturday, rescuers found the body of Castillo Adot, 58, in Barangay Florida, about 4 kilometers from the Taguango Hanging Bridge in Barangay Sua-on, where he fell along with 40 others. Adot, a resident of Sitio Taguango, was among the people who went to the hanging bridge to watch the rampaging water of the Libuganon River at the height of Thursday’s floods, when a cable holding the bridge snapped, throwing overboard all the people on the bridge. Except for Adot, the rest, including the minors, luckily survived.
Landslide victims
On Friday, two separate landslides in the town’s Barangay Gupitan killed at least five people and rendered one missing.
According to the Kapalong information center, a landslide that occurred in Gupitan village’s Sitio Awod at 8:18 p.m. on Friday buried two houses and a family. At 4 p.m. on the same day, rescuers recovered the bodies of Julius Loon, 45; Josie Loon, 42; Jennifer Loon, 13, a Grade 8 student; and Jamica Loon, 11, Grade 5 pupil.
Over an hour after the first landslide, at 9:45 p.m., another landslide buried a house in Sitio Taongatok, also of Barangay Gupitan. Rescuers retrieved the body of Joel Tinduyan, a resident, but Tinduyan’s wife remained missing.
Dangerous roads
As downcast skies continue to prevail in some parts of Mindanao due to the easterlies, local governments in flood-affected towns and cities advise the public to stay home and refrain from going out except in emergencies since the roads traversing Davao City to Agusan del Norte province still posed risks of possible floods and landslides.
None of the provinces in the region—Davao de Oro, Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental—and the regional capital, Davao City, had been spared from the floods.
READ: 10 dead, 14,000 families displaced in new rounds of Davao floods
The widespread flooding has so far affected 98,984 families, or 413,663 individuals, in the entire region, the Office of Civil Defense has reported on Saturday, with 14,959 families or 57,602 individuals still in evacuation centers.
As of 1:13 p.m. on Monday, the Davao del Norte Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office announced they closed down the road from Tagum City to B.E. Dujali town because of an ongoing damage inspection on the B.E. Dujali bridge, advising motorists to instead use the road passing through the San Miguel village when traveling between the two localities. INQ