Infra, property losses from Nona now P5B; 41 dead

MANILA, Philippines — The damage sustained from typhoon “Nona” has skyrocketed to almost P5 billion, with almost half of it in destroyed infrastructure.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s death toll also rose to 41, with 24 injured and five still missing almost a week after.

The latest fatality was Fernando Soriano, 51, of Baco, Oriental Mindoro who drowned at the height of the typhoon.

In its update as of Monday, the agency recorded damage worth P4,967,299,199.38 in Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Bicol and Eastern Visayas.

Of this figure, P2,839,429,706.50 was in destroyed agricultural crops and high value commercial crops while the damage to infrastructure went up to P2,127,799,492.88.

Thirty eight  health facilities were also damaged in the weather disturbance, of which 28 were located in Eastern Visayas and nine were in the Bicol region.

Also recorded were 20 schools with damaged classrooms, of which 46 were destroyed and 53 were only damaged by “Nona.”

So far, the agency has recorded 199, 854 damaged houses in Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Bicol and Eastern Visayas, with 55,466 of these houses totally wrecked.

Meanwhile, power has not yet been fully restored in four cities and 16 towns, which have been suffering power outages since last week.

The same was for areas in Southern Luzon and Eastern Visayas, which were still suffering communication problems because of the typhoon’s wrath.

It may be recalled that “Nona” weakened after slamming into parts of Luzon and Visayas and eventually dissipated.

However, parts of Luzon were flooded due to heavy rains from the northeast monsoon, with a total of 425 areas in Ilocos, Central Luzon, Mimaropa and Metro Manila experiencing floods. The flooding has subsided in only 150 of these areas.

So far, there are still 63,016 families or 280,788 people still affected by “Nona,” of which 17,144 families or 79,164 people are still housed in 283 evacuation centers.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development, local government units and other non-government organizations have provided P85,819,330.38 in relief assistance to affected families.

Meanwhile, the NDRRMC has not recorded casualties or damage so far from tropical depression “Onyok,” which slammed into Mindanao days after “Nona” weakened.  SFM