Floods hit Southern Mindanao towns

DAVAO CITY — Several towns in Southern Mindanao have been flooded, displacing hundreds of families, following days of incessant rains this week.

Echoing the advice of weather forecasters, the Office of Civil Defense in Region 11 warned of possible landslides in certain areas amid heavy rains attributed to an intertropical convergence zone prevailing over the Visayas and Mindanao.

Nathaniel Cruz, weather bureau chief of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, said the volume of rainfall from Jan. 1 to 10 in the Visayas and Mindanao was already equivalent to a month’s.

Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro said the weather pattern was similar to what was observed when heavy rains caused a massive landslide that wiped out Barangay Guinsau—gon in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte and killed thousands of people last year.

Floods and landslides in the Caraga region, meanwhile, have claimed two lives, with another reported missing, and affected 95,500 villagers in the Agusan and Surigao provinces and the cities of Butuan and Surigao.

In Las Nieves, the hardest-hit town in Agusan del Norte, twigs saved four children when floodwaters swept away their hut into the Camboayan River.

In Southern Mindanao, floods have displaced at least 400 families in the towns of Ascuncion, Kapalong, Braulio Dujali, Carmen and Sto. Tomas, and Tagum City, all in Davao del Norte.

Ascuncion and Kapalong towns have been placed under a state of calamity.

Authorities have been closely monitoring the banks of four major waterways in Davao City, including the Davao and Lipadas rivers, as they might overflow because of the continuous rains.

The OCD has also been checking the situation in seven landslide-prone communities in the hinterlands of Davao City, the gold-rush area on Mt. Diwalwal in Compostela Valley, and Barangay Tubaon in Taragona, Davao Oriental. — Edith Regalado, Helen Flores and Ben Serrano