BACOLOD CITY – A total of 38,675 families were displaced by floods that hit at least seven towns and cities in northern Negros Occidental on January 8 and 9, a report of the provincial government on Tuesday afternoon showed.
Based on the data from the Provincial Disaster Management Program Division, the massive floods, the second in only a week, affected 16,886 families in 16 barangays in Silay City as well as 12,567 families in 21 barangays in Victorias City; and 3,933 families in 20 barangays in Talisay City.
Also affected were 3,339 families in 10 barangays in E.B. Magalona; 1,551 families in seven barangays in Sagay City; 384 families in seven barangays in Cadiz City; and 15 families in a barangay in Escalante City.
A village in Manapla was also flooded, but the town did not have evacuees.
On Tuesday night, the Silay City Council declared a state of calamity while Talisay and Victorias were already under a state of calamity since last week.
Data also showed that 1,162 houses in four cities were damaged by the floods.
The affected houses were located in Talisay, Silay, Victorias, Cadiz, and Escalante, where many areas went under water following hours of moderate to heavy rains last weekend.
In Talisay, floods in 13 barangays damaged 329 houses, including 49 totally damaged and 280 partially damaged.
In Silay, some 729 houses were affected in 16 barangays, of which 51 were totally damaged and 678 partially damaged.
In Victorias, 17 houses were destroyed while 79 others were partially damaged, all in 17 barangays.
In Cadiz, four areas were flooded, resulting in one damaged house and five others partially damaged. In Escalante, two houses were totally damaged.
About 14 roads and bridges, as well as a flood control project, in Silay, Talisay, and Cadiz, were either destroyed or damaged.
The floods triggered by rains that started on Friday night also left two people dead each in Talisay and Silay.
On New Year’s Day, the flash floods also hit the same localities and claimed the life of a resident of Victorias, destroyed and damaged hundreds of houses, and displaced some 15,000 families