2 dead in North Cotabato floods

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Two villagers were drowned while hundreds were dislocated as rampaging flashfloods swept through peasant enclaves in four North Cotabato towns on Thursday.

The flashfloods were spawned by heavy downpours a day earlier in hinterlands at the border of the adjoining North Cotabato and Bukidnon provinces.

Worst hit by floods were riverside farmlands in Kabacan town, which is crisscrossed by big rivers that swells fast during the rainy days.

A 14-year-old high school student named Mark Bryan Amores in Bangilan District in Kabacan perished after having been swept away by floodwaters while wading through a river to reach a high ground nearby.

David Saure, disaster response and mitigation officer of the Kabacan municipal government, said the victim was declared dead on arrival at a hospital where he was brought by rescuers. 

A 60-year-old peasant in North Cotabato’s Arakan town, Winnie Pajenado, was also drowned while trying to save his water buffalo from floodwaters that hit his riverside farm.

Some low-lying spots in the 6,000-hectare campus of the state-run University of Southern Mindanao, located in the town proper of Kabacan, have also been inundated.

Two houses were also destroyed by flashfloods that hit Barangay Bantac in Magpet, a hinterland town in northwest of North Cotabato.

Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, whose office is overseeing relief works in flooded areas, said provincial government workers are now attending to the needs of evacuees, many of them now confined in barangay evacuation centers.

Mendoza said she has also directed the Integrated Provincial Health Office to extend medical services to evacuees.

Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, on Friday ordered the 602nd Brigade, which is based in Carmen town in North Cotabato, and its component battalions to help in the relief missions of Mendoza’s office.