Agaton deaths reach 30; 27 missing

Rescue teams raced against time in search of people missing or feared dead as Agaton, the first major tropical storm to hit the country this year, unleashed heavy rains and deadly landslides in the southern and eastern regions.

State weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said Tropical Storm Agaton (international name: Megi) was expected to further weaken into a low pressure area as it remained within the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR).

The weather disturbance was seen interacting with Typhoon “Basyang,” (international name: Malakas) which stayed briefly within the PAR on Tuesday morning before heading out farther 1,390 kilometers east of Central Luzon.

National and local disaster agencies reported 27 missing and five more deaths on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 30 since the storm made landfall in Guiuan, Samar province, on Sunday, with sustained winds of 65 km per hour and gusts of up to 80 kph.

The military said responders from the police, Coast Guard, and Army personnel had retrieved 25 bodies following landslides in the mountainous areas of Baybay City, Leyte, one of the hardest-hit provinces.

Verified drone footage shared on Facebook showed a wide stretch of mud that had swept down a hill of coconut trees and engulfed the village of Bunga in Baybay. At least one person died and 21 people were reported missing in the village, which had been reduced to a few rooftops poking through the mud.

Rescue efforts were also focused on the nearby village of Kantagnos, which an official said had been hit by two landslides.

Some residents managed to escape or were pulled out of the mud alive, but many were still feared trapped.

Return to village

Melani Aboyme, who was able to flee from a landslide on Sunday morning, stayed that night at an evacuation center with some residents.

Aboyme said they returned to their homes in Kantagnos the next morning, thinking that the storm had passed. She remembered hearing “a loud bang,” she said. “Then came a rush of mud [and] water with uprooted trees and boulders coming from the mountain.”

“I didn’t know what exactly happened as my family went out of our house to seek shelter in a house located on higher ground,” said the 37-year-old mother of two teenagers and a 7-year-old child.

Aboyme, her husband, Quirimon, and their children survived that landslide, but she lost her 15-year-old niece Marie Ashley Balicuatro, who she said was found dead covered with mud.

“We were really shocked. We never thought that this would happen to us. So many died in our village,” Aboyme said. “We have lost everything. We have no home to return to.”

Hampered operations

Over radio station dzMM, Baybay City Mayor Jose Carlos Cari said: “We’re looking for many people, there are 210 households there.”

“We race against time to rescue those who are hit by landslide and save lives,” said Col. Noel Vestuir, commander of the Army’s 802nd Infantry Brigade in Leyte.

Baybay City information officer Marissa Cano, who heads the city’s Emergency Response Team, told dzBB on Tuesday that “rescuers did not advance because the ground is still moving; it is dangerous.”

Several localities in Leyte like Ormoc City have deployed rescue groups to Baybay.

In the Western Visayas region, rescue operations continued on Panay Island on Tuesday, particularly in the provinces of Capiz and Iloilo where flash floods hit several municipalities.

According to the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office of Iloilo, a total of 74,707 people so far were affected by the flooding.

The agency also reported one fatality and one missing in the town of Sara.

In Capiz, a 34-year-old man was found dead after he was swept by strong currents in Pilar town, the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council reported on Tuesday.

The provincial capital of Roxas City and 16 other municipalities remained underwater, it added.

Devastation in South

The devastation left by Agaton reached as far as Mindanao, with more than 73,000 families displaced by floods in the Bangsamoro communities. There were still no fatalities reported at press time.

Some residents decided to remain in their homes instead of moving to the evacuation centers so they could look after their belongings.

Bai Intan Sumail, who has sought refuge with her children in an improvised shelter in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, said her husband stayed behind “to guard our valuables.”

But floodwaters in their neighborhood are now “knee-deep,” the 40-year-old mother noted with concern. “It’s so hard for us because we are fasting. We are used to floods but [this] is another [situation] because of [the] fasting,” she said, referring to the Muslim practice during the holy month of Ramadan which began on April 2.

Other residents have sought refuge in their motorized bancas, floating on the waters which have flooded their homes.

Damage

Agaton forced dozens of ports to suspend operations and stranded nearly 8,000 people at the start of Holy Week, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

The storm comes four months after Supertyphoon Odette (international name: Rai) left a large swathe of devastation across the archipelago, killing more than 400 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

Damage to agriculture attributed to Agaton has reached P265.3 million as of Tuesday morning, according to the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Losses have been reported mostly in the Eastern Visayas and Caraga regions, affecting 2,132 farmers. The volume of production loss was estimated at 16,532 metric tons spanning 3,060 hectares of agricultural areas.

“Affected commodities include rice, corn and high-value crops. These values are subject to validation,” said the DA’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Operations Center, adding that the bulk of the accounted losses were in the rice sector. —WITH REPORTS FROM JORDEENE B. LAGARE, FRANCES MANGOSING, NESTOR P. BURGOS JR., EDWIN O. FERNANDEZ, WILLIAMOR A. MAGBANUA, AFP AND REUTERS

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