MANILA, Philippines (Updated 11:03 a.m.) — The country’s disaster agency said Wednesday it received reports of 177 deaths, 275 injured people and 38 others missing due to Typhoon Odette that pummeled Visayas and Mindanao last weekend.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in its situation report on Wednesday said it has confirmed 11 fatalities and two persons injured due to Odette.
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Validation is still ongoing on 166 deaths, 273 hurt and 38 people reported as missing, it added.
The tally from the Philippine National Police however is higher, with 375 recorded deaths, 500 reported as injured and 56 people logged as missing.
NDRRMC spokesperson Mark Timbal explained to reporters that the council's casualty figures come from the local DRRM councils and are sent to their Operations Center.
"We don't count [information] from other sources except to those that have been officially communicated to us by the DRRM councils," he said.
"The reporting process that we have involves the continued verification of the occurrence and details of the incident and involved parties as well as the validation of the circumstance of the demise of the victims. We don't do the 'thorough counting' in the later part of the operations," he added.
Timbal also said that due to communications problems, there has been a lag in relaying information from some local government units to their DRRMC councils.
The council spokesperson however said that they are not discounting the tally from the police.
"The PNP, being one of the agencies present on the ground, is doing their own data collection activities following their own procedures. Their numbers are being used by the NDRRMC as a projection of how many possible casualties we can expect to encounter in the ongoing operations as well as the areas that are in need of assistance," Timbal added.
The council also reported 1.381 million people or 368,063 families are affected in 3,471 barangays in the Mimaropa, Bicol, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Davao, Soccsksargen, Caraga and BARMM regions.
Odette also displaced 446,939 people or 109,601 families, forcing them to stay in 2,506 evacuation centers. There are also 107,377 people or 26,588 families seeking temporary shelter in friends or relatives.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center however posted higher number of affected persons. In its report on Wednesday morning, DROMIC said it tallied 2.628 million persons or 678,043 families affected in 10 regions.
Combined agriculture, infrastructure damage up to half billion
Power interruption or outage was reported in 239 cities or municipalities, and so far, supply has been restored in 34 localities, leaving more than 200 areas still without electricity.
Communication lines were also cut off in 135 areas, but this has since been restored in 107 localities, the NDRRMC reported.
Odette’s destructive winds and floods also damaged a total of 15,618 houses, with an estimated cost of P2.419 million. Of these, 13,144 were logged as totally wrecked while 2,474 were partially damaged.
The damage wrought to agriculture is pegged at P323.26 million. Odette damaged 15,401 hectares in the affected regions. Damage to infrastructure meanwhile is estimated at P227.107 million.
The government has so far provided P11.79 million worth of assistance to affected communities.
President Rodrigo Duterte in a public address that aired Tuesday night said he approved the NDRRMC’s recommendation to declare a state of calamity in Mimaropa, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Davao and Soccsksargen regions.
“The declaration of the state of calamity will hasten the rescue and relief and rehabilitation efforts of the government and the private sector,” he added.
“[T]his will also be an effective mechanism to control the prices of goods and commodities in the areas,” Duterte also said. — Kristine Joy Patag