Power outages, floods hit Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Strong winds caused by typhoon Pablo uprooted huge trees on mountain sides in Lanao del Sur, hitting power lines and causing them to snap, plunging many towns into total darkness as of Tuesday.

Reports reaching the office of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman said more than 200 people have also been evacuated from their flooded villages in Bubong town in Lanao del Sur by responding soldiers from the Army’s 65th Infantry Battalion.

More than 20 barangays in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao have also been flooded when rivers criss-crossing the area, including tributaries of the Rio Grande de Mindanao, which springs from watersheds in Bukidnon and North Cotabato, overflowed following Tuesday’s heavy rains in the two hinterland provinces.

Loreto Rirao, director of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said 11,581 families in Sultan Kudarat town were forced to evacuate to higher grounds when rampaging floodwaters breached through their villages.

John Magno, chief of staff of the office of the ARMM’s governor, said more than a dozen teams, comprised of representatives from the region’s interior, social welfare, health departments and the regional police are now distributing relief supplies and other needed provisions to evacuees.

Magno said the ARMM’s local government secretary, Makmod Mending, Jr., is also tightly monitoring the towns of Pagalungan and Montawal, both in the second district of Maguindanao, where several villages are now underwater.

Local officials have tapped members of the 7th Infantry Battalion and the Army’s Special Forces units in the two towns to help relocate villagers away the flooded areas.

The two towns are both gateways to the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, at the tri-boundaries of the adjoining Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces. The Liguasan Marsh is a known “catch basin” of floodwaters from the hinterlands surrounding Central Mindanao.

Lt. Col. Benjie Hao, commanding officer of the 7th IB, said soldiers manning detachments in the two towns noticed the sudden rise of the levels of rivers traversing several villages 4:00 a.m. Thursday.