30,000 people flee floods in S. Philippines
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Xinhua, November 10, 2011
About 30,000 people fled their homes after floods submerged several towns in southern Philippines, officials said on Thursday.
Hours of torrential rain Tuesday night burst the banks of Lasang river in the southern province of Davao del Norte, inundating rice paddies and banana plantations in Carmen and Dujali, according to Sonio Sanchez, provincial disaster risk reduction and management division chief.
Floodwaters as high as nine feet swamped 16 villages in Carmen town, forcing some 5, 980 families to flee, Octavio Valle, the town administrator, told Xinhua.
"We were surprised by the severity of the other night's flood which was rare in the past six years," Valle said, adding the rice- producing town of some 60,000 people is a perennial flood-plain town along the Davao-Agusan highway.
He said floodwaters have been subisiding but several villages are still under water and some 100 families stay in the town gymnasium converted into an evacuation center.
The flood also affected 390 families in Dujali town, another farming town to the east, and more than 440 hectares of farm land was still submerged by floodwaters, said Sanchez.
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