A mother together with her children sit atop the fallen banana trees in Barangay San Mateo, Borongan in eastern Samar after tropical depression Urduja blew through the area.
AFP
Residents in Naval, Biliran are now appealing for water tropical storm Urduja displaced 18,000 families, and left 27 people trapped in the rubble, said Assistant Secretary Jonji Gonzales of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas in a statement on Sunday.
Gonzales said Gerard Roger Espina, mayor of Naval, Biliran, relayed the appeal to the OPAV team that conducted aerial damage assessment with the Central Command in the area on Sunday.
Children play at collapsed part of the Curba Road in Sitio Anapog, Barangay Tinubdan, Daanbantayan town in northern Cebu. The rains brought by tropical storm Urduja eroded the soil causing part of the road to collapse. The road has been closed on Sunday.
(CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
Espina said that the people of Naval, Biliran were facing the risk of losing the water supply in the next three to four days.
Michael Dino, Presidential assistant for the Visayas has ordered Gonzales to coordinate with the Armed Forces of the Philippines in assessing areas hit by the tropical storm so that government agencies tasked for relief efforts would be guided according to the immediate needs of the people.
Dino quoted Espina as saying that the town’s deep wells were damaged due to severe flooding in the area.
Fearing more rains and the flood waters rising, residents of Sitio Mahayahay, Barangay Poblacion, Daanbantayan town in northern Cebu on Sunday move some of their belongings to higher ground despite tropical storm Urduja’s passing the area.
CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO
“The people of Naval pleads for water. OPAV is calling on the Cebuanos to respond as we are the only waypoint that can bring bottled water supply to Biliran,” Gonzales said.
He said supplies from other areas in the Visayas could not reach Biliran as of the moment because the typhoon badly damaged both Ormoc and Tacloban, the only two of the strategic waypoints to Biliran.
Gonzales also appealed to search and rescue teams from Cebu to help in rescuing 27 people who remain trapped in the rubbles, and relief goods for 4,000 people (1,394 families) in the evacuation areas.