Farmer drowns in Maguindanao flashflood

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – A 30-year-old ethnic Teduray farmer was drowned on Monday as rampaging flashfloods swept through low-lying areas in Barangay Kuya in South Upi town following three days of incessant rains.

Barangay officials found the body of Nilo Temuey in a shallow portion of the Binuan River in Barangay Kuya in the northwest of Timanan.

Marlon Bansigan, municipal disaster risk reduction and management officer, said Temuey was trying to cross the river when he lost his balance and was swept away by its rampaging downstream flow.   

A 4-year-old child, Ranin Tuliakao, perished three days earlier in a landslide that hit houses on one side of a hill in Barangay Blensong in nearby North Upi town.

Torrential rains last weekend caused swamps and rivers in Maguindanao that connects to the 200,000-hectare Liguasan Delta to overflow and inundate nearby farming enclaves.

More than a dozen towns in the province are underwater since Sunday, according to the Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Relief Team (HEART) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Workers of the HEART, which is operating under the joint ministerial control of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and his executive secretary, Laisa Alamia, already distributed five tons of staple rations and non-food relief supplies to the affected villagers in continuing humanitarian missions that started on Sunday.

Reports reaching the office of the HEART at the ARMM compound in Cotabato City indicated that dozens of farm animals, including horses and water buffaloes, have also been swept away by rampaging floods that hit the low-lying towns in Maguindanao.

Education officials were also forced to suspend classes in flooded villages.