6K families displaced after rivers swell in Central Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Rampaging waters from hinterlands around Central Mindanao which typhoon Pablo pounded three days ago breached through low-lying areas at the border of Maguindanao and North Cotabato Thursday,  dislocating no fewer than 6,000 families in riverside settlements. 

Susan Macalipat, social welfare officer of North Cotabato’s Kabacan town, said 1,730 families in 12 riverside barangays in their municipality have fled to higher grounds after rivers straddling through their villages overflowed, swelled by heavy rains Tuesday in hinterland watersheds in Bukidnon.

Macalipat said worse hit by the flashflood was Barangay Kayaga, where close to a thousand residents abandoned their houses in haste after floodwaters overflowed from the banks of the mighty Rio Grande de Mindanao.

Macalipat said technicians from their municipal agriculture office are yet to determine the value of rice, corn crops and livestock swept away by the flashfloods that hit riverside villages in Kabacan.

More than 2,000 families have also been displaced by flashfloods that struck the towns of Pikit, also in North Cotabato and nearby Montawal and Pagalungan municipalities, both in Maguindanao. 

John Magno, chief of staff of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman, said relief workers from the ARMM’s social welfare departments were dispatched Wednesday to distribute relief supplies to the displaced Pagalungan and Montawal villagers.

Lt. Col. Benjie Hao, commanding officer of the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion, which covers the two flooded towns, said two hundred 7th IB combatants, backed by members of the Army’s Special Forces unit in the area, are now helping attend to the needs of the evacuees.

Several low-lying villages in at the border of Pagalungan and Pikit have also been inundated, Hao said.