Classes suspended, thousands evacuated as floods rise in Maguindanao towns

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines  --- Education officials suspended all classes in Maguindanao’s adjoining Pagalungan and Montawal towns, now flooded following three days of torrential rains that swelled rivers in the area and raised to a critical level the waters at the nearby  Liguasan Marsh.

The Liguasan delta, Asia’s largest, is a  catch basin of dozens of rivers from  hinterlands in North Cotabato and Bukidnon provinces.

Public school teachers in Pagalungan, which is traversed by big rivers that spring from the marsh, said campuses in the municipality remained flooded until Monday.

Education authorities in Montawal, whose territory was carved out of the areas under the administrative and political territory of the older Pagalungan municipality, also shut down schools in flooded areas.

Floods also ravaged the towns of Pikit, Tulunan, Mlang, Kabacan and parts of Midsayap, also in Maguindanao.

The North Cotabato disaster risk reduction and management council has confirmed that the floods started to spread in the affected towns over the weekend.

More than 30,000 families in flooded areas in the neighboring North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces have been evacuated to school campuses in higher grounds.

Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said they have mobilized emergency teams from the 5th Special Forces Battalion, the 7th Infantry Battalion, and the 602nd Brigade, to help in the evacuation of villagers.

Hermoso said Army rescuers have also been deployed to monitor the levels of big rivers  in the towns of Pagalungan and Montawal.

Lynnete Estandarte, chief of the budget division of the office of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, said dozens of barangays in the towns of Rajah Buayan, Sultan sa Barongis and Datu Paglas in the second district of the province, have also been flooded.

“We’re now repacking rice and other food provisions for the flood victims procured by the office of the governor,” Estandarte said.

Estandarte said a total of 12,369 families have been dislocated by the floods.

Estandarte said relief workers have been  checking reports of  dislocation of hundreds more of families in low-lying towns in the first district of the province, which are located along the downstream channels of now overflowing Rio Grande de Mindanao. - John Unson