Cotabato, Philippines: Landslides and floods killed 13 people as an approaching typhoon brought heavy rains to the southern Philippines, trapping some residents on their roofs, a disaster management official said on Friday.
Storms of uprooted trees, rocks and mud-laden rainwater flooded mainly rural communities around Cotabato, a city of 300,000 people overnight.
Regional government spokesman and civil defense chief Najib Sinarimbo told that seven people were missing.
He said that ten of the dead belonged to the town of Datu Bilah Sanswat in Mindanao Island.
Rescue workers recovered three more bodies from the neighboring town of Datu Odin Sanswat.
“The water started entering the houses before dawn. This is the first time this has happened to us,” Sinarimbo said.
Cenarimbo said rescue teams in rubber boats had to pull some residents from the roofs.
“We hope the numbers end there,” he said.
Provincial police posted photos on their official Facebook page of the shell of a house washed away on the banks of a swollen river, a fallen steel fence covered in debris and a cobbled road.
In another photo, police rescuers are seen carrying a child in a plastic washtub as they wade through chest-deep floodwaters.
Floodwaters have since receded in many areas, but about 90% of Cotabato City is under water and heavy rains above could cause more flooding in a few hours, Sinarimbo said.
“At the moment our focus is on rescue as well as setting up community kitchens for survivors,” he said, though the exact number of those affected is yet to be known.
Heavy rains began late Thursday in the impoverished region, which is under Muslim self-rule after decades of separatist armed insurgency.
The state meteorological office in Manila said it was partly due to Tropical Storm Nalgay in the northeast.
The water was headed for the northern Philippines, where the civil defense office said about 5,000 people had been evacuated from areas prone to flooding and landslides ahead of expected landfall on Saturday or Sunday.
The Philippines experiences an average of 20 typhoons and typhoons each year, killing people and livestock and destroying farms, homes, roads and bridges, although the south is rarely hit.
