Flash floods leave student dead, displace thousands

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A college student drowned while thousands of villagers were displaced in the flash floods that struck parts of Central Mindanao over the weekend, officials reported yesterday.

Richiel Empas, 20, of the University of Southern Mindanao, and her friends, were undergoing survival training at a river in Magpet town in North Cotabato when she was carried away by the current.

Empas’ companions managed to rescue her but she was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

The victim belonged to a mountaineering group undergoing survival and life-saving skills training in preparation for next year’s Mt. Apo trek.

Meanwhile, some 2,000 villagers in Maguindanao’s Shariff Aguak town were forced to relocate to higher ground Saturday night after rivers cutting through the area swelled and overflowed.

Thirteen villages and the town proper were inundated, according to Mayor Zahara Upam Ampatuan.

Ampatuan said local government workers are attending to the needs of the flood victims.

“The town proper is located on high ground, yet it got flooded for the first time,” he said.