Monday, August 30, 2004 32 killed, over a million displaced by floods
MANILA -- Thirty-two people have been killed and more than a million other people received assistance amid massive floods, civil defense officials said Sunday.
More than 100 towns and cities of the main island of Luzon went under water or were isolated by landslides following last week's heavy southwest monsoon rains induced by Typhoon Aere, they said.
The extreme weather killed 24 people, mainly drowning victims or buried by landslides, the civil defense office said. Eight other people are presumed dead after being carried off by rampaging floodwaters last week.
Portions of the main north-south Luzon highway were cut off after the Pampanga and Tarlac rivers burst dikes, while landslides blocked key arteries in the upland Cordillera region of northern Luzon.
No less than 44 of the 47 component towns and cities in Pangasinan were reported flooded while the toll in the Cordillera rose to four dead and one missing.
With 766 barangays flooded and 86,719 families affected, the Pangasinan Provincial Board declared the province under a "state of calamity".
Damage to agricultural crops was pegged at P12,739,184 in Benguet and another 650,000 in Abra while destruction to national and local infrastructure was estimated at P43.5 million in Mountain Province, P30 million in Kalinga and P10.933 million in Abra. Approximately P75,000 worth of livestock was also wiped out in Abra alone.
The National Transmission Corporation, meanwhile, reported that the water level in the Ambuclao Dam receded slightly from 751.15 to 750.44 meters, Binga Dam from 574.38 to 572.72 meters, and San Roque Dam to 285.4 meters.
Floodgates have been opened in all three dams in the past several days to lessen the volume of water stored there.
A partial report pegged the damage to fisheries at P148.5 million and agriculture P117.2 million. Damaged to high value crops was reported to be P5.5 million.
Civil defense officials said 1.12 million people out of the national population of 84 million received relief assistance worth 7.96 million pesos.
Of that number, more than 6,000 lost their homes and sought refuge at government-run evacuation centers.
Although the heavy rains have stopped and floods are receding, Red Cross spokeswoman Tess Usapdin said the affected population would need a week more of food and medical support before things could return to normal.
"The waters are subsiding. Hopefully, there would be no typhoons arriving soon that could induce more monsoon rains," Defense Secretary and civil defense chief Avelino Cruz said over radio station dzBB. (AFP/With Sun.Star Pangasinan, Sun.Star Baguio)
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