Mindanaotoday.com | Misamis Occidental flooding: 9 dead, 3 missing
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Flooding due to shearline and wind convergence weather disturbances which affected Northern Mindanao since Saturday, Dec. 24, claimed nine lives while three others remain missing in Misamis Occidental.
Some 14,456 families, composed of 67,733 persons from 23 municipalities in five provinces of the region had evacuated for safety.
These even as the Office of Civil Defense-10 confirmed Tuesday (Dec. 27) that search, rescue and retrieval teams in Misamis Occidental have recovered nine corpses while three others remain missing and seven others sustained injuries, trying to save themselves from being swept away by the flood.
Two residents of Jimenez town were reported to have died while three others have been missing since Sunday morning: Fe Sencil of Macabajao village was drowned while Felicidad Dangcalan, 68, of Naga village died due to cardiac arrest while being rescued from her house.
Three others, Christiline Lomo, 39; Ronilo Abastas, 39, and Cristal Bella Abastas, 4, were reported missing in Jimenez while a body of an elderly man was retrieved by rescuers in the same town on Monday, Dec. 26.
In Tudela, two bodies identified to be Mark Lester Dampas, 20, and Jestoni Lapot, 27, were found and causes of deaths have been to be confirmed.
On Sunday (Dec. 25) evening, the bodies of a father, Mario Sambrio, 70, and daughter Elenita Calamian, 43, were dug out from a landslide in Mialen, Oroquieta City.
Clarin Mayor Emeterio “Jojo” Roa Jr. had reported earlier that two bodies were retrieved by rescuers in his town, a 17-year old person with disability and the other was crossing a bridge when he was swept away on Christmas eve, Dec. 24.
OCD-10 reported to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) that the 67,733 evacuees from 96 villages in the region were in 80 evacuation centers.
Eighty residential structures were “totally damaged” — swept away by floodwaters, storm surge, or flattened to the ground by strong wind and landslide – while 466 other houses were “partially damaged,” as Tuesday, Dec. 27.
In Misamis Occidental, some 9,218 or 2,133 families who have been in the evacuation centers came from Oroquieta and Ozamiz cities and Aloran, Calamba, Clarin, Jimenez, Lopez Jaena, Panaon, Plaridel, Sinacaban, and Tudela towns.
Still flooded, as of this writing, are Aloran, Clarin an d Tudela while floodwaters in Jimenez and Ozamiz (Maningcol village) have started to recede.
The OCD-10 report also showed that Misamis Oriental has 56,917 evacuees, most of them from Gingoog City with 34 081 while the rest from the city of El Salvador and the municipalities of Balingasag, Balingoan, Laguindingan, Magsaysay, Medina, and Talisayan.
Flooding incidents were also reported in Iligan (Lanao del Norte), Malaybalay, Valencia and San Fernando (Bukidnon), as well as in Mambajao (Camiguin. (MT)
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