A total of 154 cities and municipalities have already been placed under a state of calamity due to Super Typhoon “Egay” and enhanced southwest monsoon or “habagat”, including the municipality of Macabebe in Pampanga province which has been submerged in flood for nearly one month already, authorities said on Wednesday, August 2.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said in its latest situational report that a state of calamity was declared in six affected regions.
These include 28 areas in Ilocos Region (Region 1), 29 areas in Cagayan Valley (Region 2), 36 areas in Central Luzon (Region 3), 23 areas in Calabarzon (Region 4A), Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro in Mimaropa (Region 4B), and 37 areas in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
In Region 3, Pampanga was placed under a province-wide state of calamity affecting 21 cities and municipalities.
One of those affected is the municipality of Macabebe which has been experiencing flood up to four to five feet since the Typhoon “Dodong” hit the country last July 13, according to Jomel Cruz, head of Macabebe, Pampanga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO).
“Ang bayan ng Macabebe is composed of 25 barangays. Right now, lahat ng barangays are flooded and 18 are severely flooded kasi panahon pa ni Typhoon Dodong nagsimula na ang pagbaha sa low-lying areas at tuloy tuloy ‘yun ng pagdating ni Typhoon Egay at pati si Typhoon Falcon (The municipality of Macabebe is composed of 25 barangays. Right now, all barangays are flooded and 18 are severely flooded because the flooding in low-lying areas started since Typhoon Dodong and it continued until Typhoon Egay came and Typhoon Falcon),” Cruz said in a radio interview with dzBB.
“Ang low-lying areas namin even the slightest high tide ay affected na. Ngayon umuulan pa at mataas ang level ng high tide, it’s 5.2 feet kaya ‘yung tubig sa amin hindi humuhupa. Mahina ang paghupa kasi hindi makalabas ang dagat dahil mataas ang high tide level (We have low-lying areas that are affected with even the slightest high tide. Now it’s raining too and there is high tide, it’s 5.2 feet [high], that’s why the flood is not easing. The water could not exit to the sea because of high tide so flood is slow to ease),” he added.
Cruz said it might take three to five days before the situation improves in their town considering that it has already stopped raining there.
The concern now of the MDRRMO of Macabebe is how to sustain the needs of the evacuees in the evacuation centers. Cruz said there were 367 families or around 1,200 individuals that were staying in evacuation centers in Macabebe.
“We are also trying to be careful in distributing relief packs because we are under a state of calamity. Although we have access to our QR [quick response] funds, we are also not taking advantage of that because we have still so many months left. Dapat medyo maitawid natin ‘yun (We need to make it last),” he said.
“We are coordinating with different national government agencies who can assist us for food rations and non-food rations to sustain our evacuees and we are trying to access the funding assistance given by the DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development] now that we have been declared under a state of calamity,” he noted.
The situation in Macabebe is the same for many areas in Luzon which bore the brunt of Egay, according to NDRRMC.
2.8M individuals affected
The NDRRMC said a total of 765,024 families or 2,856,962 individuals were already affected by the combined effects of Egay and enhanced habagat.
Of this, there were 15,604 families or 57,740 individuals who were staying in 677 evacuation centers.
The death toll remained at 27 but only two fatalities have been confirmed so far while the rest were still being validated. There were also 13 persons who got injured while the number of missing persons decreased from 20 to 13.
Agri, infra damage at P5.5B
The combined damage to agriculture and infrastructure sectors has also reached P5.5 billion, according to NDRRMC.
A total of P1,971,988,530.04 worth of damage to agriculture was recorded in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4A, 4B, Western Visayas (Region 6), Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
On the other hand, damage to infrastructure amounted to P3,529,972,255.78 in Regions 1, 2, 4A, 4B, Bicol (Region 5), 5, Davao Region (Region 11), Soccsksargen (Region 12), BARMM, and CAR.