Flooding, landslides leave 20 dead in RP – NDCC

By Ronron
February 22, 2008

Twenty people were reported killed while close to 300,000 were displaced due to the flooding and landslide incidents in the central part of the Philippines since last week brought about by a low pressure area (LPA) and the tail end of cold front, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) said Friday.

The NDCC said two persons were also injured and five remain missing as bad weather wreaked havoc in the provinces of Albay, Capiz, Eastern Samar, Leyte and Lanao del Norte, among others starting February 12.

The fatalities come from Albay (one due to landslide, another from drowning), Capiz (one due to electrocution), Eastern Samar (nine from drowning and one from electrocution), Leyte (two due to drowning), and Lanao del Norte (five due to landslide).

The two injured, meanwhile, are from Eastern Samar, and the five missing are from Albay (one), Eastern Samar (three), and Lanao del Norte (one), the NDCC said in its 8am report yesterday.

So far, 543 houses were totally damaged and 3,515 others were partially destroyed due to the calamity. Most of these are from Eastern Samar, while the rest are from Samar, Northern Samar and Oriental province.

While the NDCC tallied a total of 514,862 persons or 106,455 families from 896 villages in Oriental Mindoro, Albay, Catanduanes, Sorsogon, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Capiz, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar, Samar, Leyte, Misamis Oriental, Lanao del Norte, and Sultan Kudarat provinces as having been affected, it said only 295,397 persons or 60,654 families of them were displaced.

Estimated cost of damages to infrastructure and agriculture has been placed at P796,980,767.35 by the NDCC, a bigger bulk of it is in the former. The damaged properties are in Albay, Capiz, Leyte, Eastern Samar, Samar, Northern Samar, and Biliran.

Eastern Samar province, Albay province and Sigma town in Capiz have already been placed under a State of Calamity by virtue of the respective local government units, the NDCC said.

So far, the cost of assistance coming from the NDCC, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), local government units, non-governmental organizations, and other groups already reached P4,123,887.90, the NDCC report said.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr., who chairs the NDCC, and DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral have already made separate visits to some of the affected provinces the past few days.

The NDCC said an aerial survey that will be facilitated by the Office of Civil Defense was also scheduled yesterday in Albay, Sorsgon and Camarines Sur to check on the reported landslide incidents and the effects of flooding there./DMS