Zamboanga City placed under state of calamity

MANILA, Philippines — Zamboanga City was declared under state of calamity on Thursday due to the effects of a continuing dry spell.

Reports say the Zamboanga City Council approved the declaration and authorized the release of funds for mitigation.

The city is set to speed up its cloud seeding operations, which is the mitigating measure strongly endorsed by the Department of Agriculture's (DA) Bureau of Soils and Water Management.

Zamboanga City Hall information officer Belen Sheila Covarrubias said the cloud seeding would require a funding of P3 million as counterpart from DA, P700,000 from the Zamboanga City Water District and P300,000 of the local government.

A report from the city agriculturist revealed that a total of P132.54 million worth of crops in over 8,924 hectares of farmlands were affected by the dry spell and bush fires as of March 30.

The affected farmlands were planted with rice, corn, assorted vegetables, banana, rubber, cassava and coconut.

Out of 25 irrigation dams in the city, nine have dried up while six are in critical condition and 10 are below the normal water level, City Agriculturist Diosdado Pacat reported.

READ: Dry spell takes toll on Zamboanga agriculture

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration earlier warned that the weak El Niño condition in the country would result to a dry spell in some parts of the country.

The El Niño is expected to last until the middle of the year.