1 dead, thousands flee as floods hit south
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One person was killed and thousands fled their homes as a tropical storm battered the southern Philippines with strong winds and heavy rain yesterday, officials said.
One person in Butuan City was killed after being hit by a tree uprooted by the storm’s 80-kilometre per hour winds, village chief Fred Olaer said.
In Surigao del Sur province on Mindanao island, where the storm known locally as “Seniang”, hit land before dawn, 13,740 people were evacuated in eight towns, governor Johnny Pimentel said.
“The rains are very strong and there has been no let-up in the last three days,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel said he declared a “state of calamity” in the province to allow local authorities to tap into additional funding for relief supplies.
Floodwaters as deep as a metre and a half were reported in some areas as rescuers in rubber boats rushed to aid residents trapped in their homes, he said.
The number of evacuees may rise as rivers continue to swell, he said, adding winds had brought down trees and blown roofs off shanties.
“This is the first time that my house was flooded,” Agusan del Sur vice governor Santiago Cane said.
Thousands of others were evacuated from lakeside and riverside communities in Agusan del Norte, said provincial disaster office staff member Erma Suyo.
Seniang was forecast to bring “heavy to intense” rains within its 300km diameter, as it packed wind gusts of 80kmph.
The storm, moving west at 11kmph, is expected to cross the central Philippines in the next two days.
The storm forced the cancellation of 32 domestic flights, the Manila airport authority said.
Hundreds were stranded in seaports in the south, police said.
The affected provinces are located in the Caraga region in northeast Mindanao, one of the Philippines’ most flood-prone areas.
The Philippines is battered by about 20 storms every year, many of them deadly.
Earlier this month Super Typhoon Hagupit left 18 people dead after it lashed central provinces with 210kmph winds.
A year earlier, Super Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest ever to hit land, left 7,350 people dead or missing in the same region as it stirred up tsunami-like waves, wiping out entire towns.
