NEARLY 150,000 families or almost 600,000 people in northern Luzon were affected by the fierce winds and intense rains brought by Typhoon Ompong (international name Mangkhut) over the weekend, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said Monday, September 17.
As or 6 a.m. Monday, a total of 147,540 families or 591,762 persons were affected in the Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, National Capital Region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
Of the total, NDRRMC spokesperson Edgar Posadas said 57,196 families or 219,508 persons sought shelter in evacuation centers.
Posadas said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has distributed P28.976 million worth of food and relief items to the affected population.
As of 12 a.m., 83 passengers and three vessels remained stranded.
Posadas said the authorities were working to restore electricity in 155 areas that suffered from outages. As of Monday, 52 transmission lines have been restored.
Posadas said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is also working on the clearing and repair of the 214 road sections and five bridges.
Some 79 houses were destroyed while 372 were damaged.
However, Posadas said they have yet to release the official count of the typhoon’s casualties as it was still being validated and consolidated as of Monday.
Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Oscar Albayalde said the police is shifting its focus from search, rescue and recovery to law and order functions and support to relief and rehabilitation operations to hasten restoration to normalcy of all public and private functions and services briefly disrupted in areas affected by the calamity.
“Part of our post-disaster law and order functions include enforcement of regulations on fair trade imposed by the Department of Trade and Industry against hoarding, profiteering and illegal trade practices to ensure availability of consumer goods in the market,” he said.
He said a 24-man search and rescue platoon from the PNP Special Action Forces (SAF) was deployed to assist in the retrieval operations being conducted in Itogon, Benguet where miners were reportedly buried following a major landslide.
Albayalde said the SAF troopers are equipped with two units of radar life detector, ropes and harnesses, digging tools and other search and rescue basic equipment capable of such operations. (SunStar Philippines)