Floods hit Mindanao villages

COTABATO CITY – Thousands of villagers at the boundary of Maguindanao and North Cotabato evacuated to higher grounds yesterday after flash floods swept through their communities, destroying about 200 houses and drowning six people, two of them minors.

The flash floods were spawned by heavy rains in the hinterlands of Bukidnon, from where more than a dozen rivers crisscrossing the towns of Carmen and Kabacan in North Cotabato and Pagalungan and Montawal towns in Maguindanao, emanate.

Flash floods also struck villages in the towns of Matan-ao, Malita, Sta. Maria, Malala, Sulop and Hagonoy in Davao del Sur on Tuesday afternoon, affecting at least 3,000 families. – John Unson, Edith Regalado