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Tropical storm “Cosme” battered the northern regions on Sunday
with powerful winds triggering floods and landslides and displacing
about 6,000 people, relief officials said.
The whole province of Zambales is now under a
state of calamity, reported Gov. Amor Deloso in an interview with
The Manila Times, noting that an estimated P150-million worth of
damages in the town of Sta. Cruz alone, which translates to some
7,000 houses or about 80 percent of the total number of houses in
the municipality, which was the most severely hit.
There were no immediate reports of casualties
but the civil defense office in Manila said huge waves destroyed 23
houses and 12 fishing boats while displacing 845 people in the towns
of Iba, and nearby Botolan, in Zambales.
The governor added that around 500 families were
forced to evacuate their homes along the coastal barangays of the
town due to nonstop rains and strong winds on Saturday.
While most of the residents have gone back to
their houses and are now repairing their roofs, Deloso said that
most of the public structures such as schools and buildings in the
town plaza were seriously damaged.
The storm uprooted trees and even a school
building in Iba, where a Philippine Army battalion of about 500
soldiers mounted a search and rescue operation for families
displaced by the storm surges, said the report.
In Subic town, the recently built Nagyatok
resettlement area with around 200 families was also hit hard by
Cosme and people needed to temporarily evacuate, but Deloso said
that they are now well.
In Bataan, some portions of the MacArthur
Highway in Abucay had floodwaters but were passable and for a change
Dinalupihan and Hermosa were without flooded areas except for
portions of the road near the Dinalupihan Public Market. A road at
the Doña Francisca Subdivision, a first class subdivision in
Balanga City, was with floodwaters, same with houses at the Simple
Living Subdivison. Strong winds hit the province three times, the
first a few minutes after the weather bureau announced in its 11:00
a.m. bulletin that Bataan was under Signal No. 2. Some
ready-to-harvest palay in Palihan town in Hermosa, were seen lodged
in mud.
The northwestern coasts as well as the northern
mountain resort of Baguio were without electricity while the
coastguard barred small ferries from taking to sea, it said in a
report.
Flooding and landslides in Panay Island
displaced more than 5,000 other people when the storm brushed past
the region last week, the relief agency said in a statement.
The storm struck overnight Saturday at wind
speeds of 95 kilometers (59 miles) an hour before weakening slightly
to 85 kilometers (53 miles) per hour as it raked northeast across
the Cordillera mountain range, the weather bureau said.
Floods cut off key roads in Panay, the
neighboring island of Mindoro and northern Luzon while landslides
damaged a house and shut down roads to Baguio and nearby areas in
the Cordillera, it said in an update.
The eye of the storm was tracked 30 kilometers
(18.6 miles) east of the northern city of Tuguegarao at 10:00 a.m.
(0200 GMT), the weather bureau said.
The bureau warned residents of low-lying areas
and near mountain slopes across Luzon to “take all the necessary
precautions against possible flashfloods and landslides,” saying
the storm was enhancing the rain-laden seasonal winds of the
southwest monsoons.
-- AFP with Anthony Bayarong and Ernie Esconde
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