Boy drowned, three companions missing in Cotabato river mishap

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A male Grade 5 pupil drowned while three of his companions are still missing after they were swept away by rampaging floodwaters while fishing at one side of the Pulangi River in Kabacan, Cotabato, on Thursday afternoon, September 17.

Local executives and personnel of the Kabacan Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office separately told reporters on Friday that emergency responders found the cadaver of the 11-year-old boy at a downstream stretch of the Pulangi River in Sitio Lumayong in Barangay Kayaga in the municipality.

There were eight of them, all boys, fishing at the river when floodwaters from upland areas swept through, according to barangay and municipal officials.

Four male companions of the boy who died in the incident, all grade school pupils, were rescued and immediately turned over to their parents by Kabacan MDRRMO employees and barangay officials who responded to the incident.

Officials of the Kabacan Municipal Police Station and local executives confirmed to reporters on Friday that three other children are still the subject of an extensive search in stretches of the Pulangi River, which drains into the nearby Ligawasan Delta.

The Ligawasan Delta is a catch basin of waters from rivers that spring from mountain ranges in upland towns in the neighboring Cotabato, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte and Sultan Kudarat provinces in Central Mindanao.