Heavy rain brings flashfloods to Mindanao areas

COTABATO CITY — Flashfloods on Thursday night swept through villages in the city, crisscrossed by rivers connected to the Liguasan Delta that overflowed due to heavy rains.

The 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta is a catch basin for large rivers that spring from hinterlands in the provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, North Cotabato and Bukidnon.

Worst hit by the floods here were villages in lowlands in northwest of the city and in areas near rivers that drain into the nearby Illana Bay.

Most waterways straddling through the city flowing downstream to its western seacoast are perennially clogged with swaths of water hyacinths thriving abundantly in the upper delta of Maguindanao province.

Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, chairperson of the Cotabato City disaster risk reduction and management council, dispatched more emergency teams on Friday morning to assess the extent of flooding in barangays here and to provide affected residents essential interventions.

More than a hundred barangays in different towns in nearby Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces also got inundated following heavy downpours the past four days.