DISASTER SITUATIONER. Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim declared a state of calamity in the entire region on Saturday (Oct. 29, 2022) due to the damage of Severe Tropical Storm Paeng. He said that based on the updated data provided by the region’s disaster response agency, 40 people have died in flooding and landslides that took place in the region. (Screengrab from DXMY - Cotabato video footage)
COTABATO CITY – Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim has declared a state of calamity in the entire region on Saturday due to the devastating effects of Severe Tropical Storm Paeng where 40 deaths have been recorded so far.
“Some 80 to 100 others are still missing,” Ebrahim said, adding that 31 others were reported injured.
“In our meeting today, we assessed the situation that we need to declare a state of calamity in the region,” the chief minister said during a press briefing here.
“With this, we now instruct all BARMM ministries and offices to extend to the affected areas," he added.
Ebrahim said Maguindanao province was severely hit by flooding brought about by Paeng's heavy rains for the past two days.
Aside from Maguindanao, the BARMM also covers the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Marawi, and Lamitan, and the 63 villages in six towns of North Cotabato.
In an updated situation report, he said figures from BARMM’s Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READI) placed the death toll at 40, the bulk of which is in Maguindanao province.
He said the focus of their current rescue and retrieval operation in Maguindanao is in the coastal Barangay Kusiong in Datu Odin Sinsuat town where a landslide occurred and buried a still undetermined number of people.
As flooding hit the village, a huge number of residents sought shelter at a local chapel at the foot of Mt. Minandar on Friday afternoon when the tragedy struck.
“So far, it is in that area where we have many casualties,” Ebrahim said.
Meanwhile, BARMM READI head Naguib Sinarimbo also corrected earlier reports that 67 have died in the flooding brought by the tropical cyclone.
“The casualty figures in our data had double entries but we have corrected it,” Sinarimbo, also the region’s concurrent interior minister and spokesperson, said.
He said BARMM READI data also showed that 115,437 families or some 572,185 individuals have been displaced by the floods. (PNA)
