COTABATO, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains swamped a southern Philippine province, killing at least 42 people, leaving 16 others missing and trapping some residents on their roofs, officials said Friday.
Most of the victims were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in hard-hit Maguindanao province, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former guerrillas.
“The amount of rainwater that came down overnight was unusually (heavy) and flowed down mountainsides and swelled rivers,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone.
Authorities have evacuated thousands of people out of the path of Nalgae, which could possibly make landfall Friday night in Samar province in central Philippines, disaster officials said.
“I hope the casualty numbers won’t rise further but there are still a few communities we haven’t reached,” Sinarimbo said, adding the rains had eased since Friday morning, causing floods to start to recede in several towns.
Sinarimbo said based on reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, 27 died mostly by drowning and landslides in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, 10 in Datu Blah Sinsuat town and five others in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.
Six people were missing in Datu Blah Sinsuat and 10 others in Upi, Sinarimbo said.
A rescue team reported that the bodies of at least 11 villagers were recovered in Kusiong, a tribal village at the foot of a mountain in Datu Odin Sinsuat, where floods and landslides also hit houses in the community, Sinarimbo said.
Army officials also reported at least 42 storm deaths in Maguindanao and said in a statement that their forces were “continuing to rescue those trapped in the flood in collaboration with local disaster teams” and take the displaced in army trucks to evacuation camps.
The unusually intense rains that flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains were caused by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which was expected to slam into the country’s eastern coast from the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, according to forecasters.
About 5,000 people were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, which was not expected to strengthen into a typhoon as it approached land, government forecasters and other officials said.
About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.