Various ailments afflict Tarlac flood victims

TARLAC CITY — Water-borne diseases continue to afflict flood victims, mostly children, in the northern Tarlac town of Paniqui, even as hundreds of families remain in evacuation centers.

This, as the Tarlaqueños WorldWide Group (TWWG), an Internet-based organization that draws membership from natives of this province now based in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and across Asia, raises funds to help the calamity victims.

In a report to Gov. Jose Yap Sr., Dr. Cecille Lopez, of the provincial health office, said 1,071 Paniqui residents have been suffering from acute respiratory infections.

More than a hundred people in Paniqui have contracted diarrhea, while nearly 400 have been nursing fever, Lopez said.

Lopez also reported that some 200 farmers in the flood-stricken western villages of Paniqui have been suffering from skin diseases due to prolonged exposure to floodwaters.

About 200 families, or more than 900 people, are still housed in two evacuation centers in Paniqui, while more than 500 other families or 2,500 people are in six temporary shelters in neighboring Moncada town.

Except for intermittent rains in the afternoons, weather conditions in the province have improved. Despite this, farming villages in the two towns are still flooded due to a 700-meter breach on the earth dike along the Tarlac River in Barangay Colibangbang, Paniqui last Aug. 27.

Floodwaters continue to stream through the dike’s breached portion. Tarlac first district Rep. Gilbert Teodoro Jr. warned that unless the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) immediately repairs the damage, Paniqui and nearby towns will suffer from more destruction.

Work on the Tarlac River is under the DPWH’s Agno Flood Control Project.

Meanwhile, businessman and civic leader Dan Asiaten, TWWG’s Philippine chairman, said the donations from Tarlaqueños abroad will be used to purchase relief goods, mostly food and clothing, for the flood victims.

Tarlac suffered P14.15 million in losses in livestock and P142 million in agriculture, and P214.5 million in infrastructure damage.