More Central Mindanao folk flee flooded communities

COTABATO CITY , Philippines– Thousands more have abandoned their flooded villages in the past two days in Central Mindanao, where big rivers continued to overflow due to heavy downpours since Tuesday.

Radio station dxMS, an outfit of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate here, reported yesterday that floodwaters have spread in the town proper of North Cotabato’s Pigcawayan town, about 24 kilometers northeast of this city.

Local officials earlier said 6,432 villagers have been displaced in Montawal town in Maguindanao.

More than 5,000 families in at least 14 villages in North Cotabato and Maguindanao were displaced by the sudden surge of floodwaters last Wednesday as the Lumayong River in Kabacan, North Cotabato swelled after typhoon “Crising” struck Mindanao. 

More than 2,000 displaced families from interior areas in Barangay Kayaga in Kabacan town have built tents along the Cotabato-Davao Highway.

Several villages in the adjoining Maguindanao towns of Kabuntalan and Northern Kabuntalan, and Midsayap in North Cotabato have also been inundated as downstream channels of the Rio Grande de Mindanao overflowed due to heavy rains.  

Pombaen Karon Kader, assistant social welfare secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said they have initially distributed 1,000 food packages to evacuees in Pagalungan and Montawal towns. 

Kader said more relief workers were deployed to the affected towns on Friday to attend to the needs of the evacuees.