New Delhi: At least 50 people were killed in flash floods and landslides caused by torrential rains, including in a hard-hit southern Philippine province where up to 60 villagers are feared missing and buried in a massive mudslide laden with rocks, trees, and debris, officials said Saturday. According to Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region governed by former separatist guerrillas, at least 42 people were swept away by raging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in Maguindanao province from Thursday night to early Friday. The onslaught of Tropical Storm Nalgae, which slammed into the eastern province of Camarines Sur early Saturday, killed eight more people elsewhere in the country, according to the government’s disaster response agency
The worst storm impact so far, according to Sinarimbo, was a mudslide that buried dozens of houses and up to 60 people in the tribal village of Kusiong in Maguindanao’s Datu Odin Sinsuat town, citing accounts from Kusiong villagers who survived the flash flood and mudslide. Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato, who visited the mudslide-ravaged community on Saturday, said the mudslide buried about 60 rural houses in a 5-hectare (12-acre) section of the community. He did not say how many villagers were buried in the mudslide, which he described as ‘overwhelming.’
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At least 13 bodies, mostly of children, were dug up Friday and Saturday by rescuers in Kusiong, Sinarimbo said. “That community will be our ground zero today,” he said, adding that heavy equipment and more rescue workers had been deployed to intensify the search and rescue work. “It was hit by torrents of rainwater with mud, rocks and trees that washed out houses,” Sinarimbo said. The coastal village, which lies at the foot of a mountain, is accessible by road, allowing more rescuers to be deployed Saturday to deal with one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the country’s south in decades, he said.
(With PTI inputs)