• Friday, 22 November 2024

31 dead in floods, landslides in southern Philippines

31 dead in floods, landslides in southern Philippines
Manila, 28 October 2022 (dpa/MIA) – Thirty-one people were killed in floods and landslides brought about by a tropical storm in a southern Philippine province, disaster officials said on Friday. The deaths were reported in three towns in Maguindanao province, 975 kilometres south of Manila, according to Naguib Sinarimbo, interior minister of the Muslim autonomous region in the southern Philippines. Sixteen of the dead were from the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat, while 10 were from the nearby town of Datu Blah Sinsuat and another five drowned in Upi town, he said. About 67,000 residents were also affected by the floods and landslides, Sinarimbo said. "Most of the victims died from flash floods, and then landslides that buried houses," said Nasrullah Imam, head of the provincial disaster risk reduction and manage office. "Some of the victims were trapped in their homes," he added Imam said an undetermined number of missing were also reported since some relatives were still looking for their family members. Raging brown, muddy floodwaters reached up to rooftops in the affected areas, photos and footage on social media showed. The weather bureau said tropical storm Nalgae was expected to bring heavy rainfall over the western Philippines until the weekend, when millions of Filipinos were expected to travel ahead of All Saints' Day, locally called Undas, the traditional day for Filipinos to visit the graves of their dead relatives. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 75 kilometres per hour (km/h) and gusts of up to 90 km/h. It was moving west-north-west at 25 km/h.