MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Nearly 100 people have died in one of the most destructive storms to hit the Philippines this year, and dozens more are feared to be missing after fleeing in the wrong direction and being buried in a mudslide , while more than a million inhabitants have been affected by the floods in several provinces, authorities said on Monday.
At least 53 of the 98 dead – most from floods and landslides – came from Maguindánao, in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, which was hit by unusually heavy rainfall triggered by tropical storm Nalgae. On Sunday, the meteor struck the country on its journey to the South China Sea, leaving a trail of destruction across a large swath of the archipelago.
A large contingent of rescuers with bulldozers and backhoe loaders have resumed recovery work in the southern town of Kusiong, in the province of Maguindánao, where it is feared that between 80 and 100 people, including entire families, have been buried due to a landslide or swept away by flash floods that began Thursday night, said Naguib Sinarimbo, interior minister of an autonomous Muslim region ruled by former separatist guerrillas under a peace agreement.
The main government disaster response agency also reported that 69 people were injured and at least 63 are missing.
The storm affected more than 1 million people, including more than 912,000 residents who fled to shelters or relatives’ homes. More than 4,100 homes and 16,260 hectares (40,180 acres) of rice and other crops have been damaged by the floods as the country prepares for a looming food crisis due to global supply disruptions, officials said.
Sinarimbo said that the official number of missing persons does not include the feared missing in the massive avalanche that hit Kusiong, because there could be entire families buried, without anyone being able to provide names and details to the authorities.
The disaster in Kusiong, populated mainly by the Teduray ethnic minority, was particularly tragic because its more than 2,000 residents have held disaster preparedness drills every year for decades to be prepared for a tsunami. But they weren’t prepared for the dangers that could come from Mount Minandar, Sinarimbo said. The city is in its skirts.
“When people heard the warning bells, they ran and gathered at a church on a hill,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press Saturday, citing reports from villagers in Kusiong.
“The problem was that it wasn’t a tsunami that flooded them, but the large amount of water and mud that came down the mountain,” he said.
In August 1976, an 8.1 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Gulf of Moro occurred around midnight, killing thousands and devastating coastal provinces in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Philippine history. Drills have been carried out in that region since then.
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