4 Albay towns urged to continue sandbagging vs floods

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines—Local disaster councils in four landslide- and flood-prone towns in Albay have been advised to continue with their sandbagging activities even as classes have resumed and majority of 6,000 residents have returned to their homes on Friday due to a break in the rains spawned by Typhoon “Mina, a disaster official said Friday.

Classes were back to normal in Oas, Libon, Polangui and Malinao, said Abundio Nuñez, officer of the Albay Public Safety and Emergency Management Office (Apsemo).

A report of the Office of Civil Defense-Bicol added that only around 775 persons or 152 families from four barangays in Polangui town—Basud, Magurang, Sugcad and Gabon—have remained in temporary shelters.

The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, however, told residents in the four towns to continue with their sandbagging work to mitigate floods brought about by damaged river control systems, dikes and embankments along the Bicol River Basin, said Nuñez.

Polangui Mayor Cherry Sampal said without the sandbags the number of evacuees could have reached 10,000 persons.

She said the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office gave five kilos of rice per family, who helped in the sandbagging activity, as part of the agency’s food-for-work program.

In Catanduanes, the police and the Philippine National Red Cross conducted a search for a fisherman, who went missing Thursday in Baras town, about 24 kilometers from Virac, the capital of the province.

Nelson Vergara, 66, of Barangay Bagong Sirang, went fishing near Minalabay Island at around 7 a.m. but failed to return, said a report of Red Cross administrator Reymond Reginaldo and Superintendent Lito Pitallano, Catanduanes police director.

At around 12:30 p.m., another fisherman found Vergara’s small boat at the back of the island but Vergara was nowhere to be found.

On Friday, Mina intensified into a typhoon and seriously threatened the Northern Luzon area while residents in low lying and mountainous areas under public storm warning signals and Southern Luzon and Visayas were alerted by the weather bureau against possible flashfloods and landslides.