GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 10 March) – Officials declared Thursday the coastal town of Maitum in Sarangani province under a state of calamity due to the destruction wrought by heavy flooding and landslides on Tuesday that affected 15 of its 19 barangays.
Raymund Mayled, head of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said the municipal council issued the calamity declaration in a special session Thursday morning to facilitate the release of additional calamity funds to address the situation.
He said Maitum Mayor Alexander Bryan Reganit and members of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council endorsed the move in a meeting on Wednesday night.
Parts of Maitum, including its Poblacion area, were submerged in floodwaters late Tuesday afternoon after several major rivers overflowed following over two hours of heavy rains that started around 2 p.m.
Mayled said hardest hit were areas traversed by the Pangi River, especially Barangays Kalaong, Ticulab, Upo, and Kalaneg.
As of 3 p.m. Thursday, he said a total of 1,829 households from 15 barangays were affected by the floods.
He said 223 families or 923 individuals were either evacuated or rescued at the height of the floods on Tuesday night from the affected villages but only 30 families so far remained at the municipal gymnasium.
Citing their initial assessment, Mayled said the floods damaged around P130 million worth of infrastructure and P15 million agricultural crops.
“The damaged infrastructure includes three bridges and portions of the national and provincial roads,” he said in a phone interview.
Mayor Reganit said in a radio interview that among those affected were local ecotourism resorts, among them the site of its famed white water river tubing in Barangay New La Union, and residential communities.
In Barangay Kalaong for instance, he estimated that around 90 percent of the houses were submerged in floodwaters.
“I think it was the worst flooding that we experienced here in Maitum,” Reganit said.
He said they are facing difficulty reaching some of their remote barangays due to the landslides along some access roads.
Mayled said the local government has released initial food and other relief assistance to the affected households.
He said their teams are repacking additional relief supplies, including those delivered by the provincial government of Sarangani and private donors.
The provincial government sent some 3,000 liters of diesel fuel on Thursday to assist the clearing operations in the affected areas.
Mayled added that the municipal government allotted some P4.57 million from its quick response funds for the relief operations and other necessary interventions.
(Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)