326 houses damaged, 3 hurt in Banaue flash flood, landslides

State of calamity declared in tourist town 

CLEARING OPERATION Police personnel dispatched by the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera Administrative Region help in a road clearing operation in Banaue, Ifugao, on Friday, July 8, 2022, in the aftermath of Thursday night’s downpour that caused landslides and flash floods in the area. PRO-COR PIO PHOTO

 

By Victor Martin, Danessa Rivera 

BANAUE, Ifugao — The municipal government here Monday placed this tourist town under a state of calamity due to flash floods and landslides spawned by the southwest monsoon or habagat.
    Mayor Joel Bungallon said the flash floods displaced at least 825 farmers and damaged 679 hectares of agricultural lands.
    Three persons were injured.
    This, as a regional Dept. of Social Welfare and Development report said 329 houses were either totally or partly damaged while 326 houses were partly damaged in the landslide that was triggered by a downpour that lasted for two hours.
    It added that more than 1,500 individuals were affected by the landslide.
    Meanwhile, Bungallon said that as of noon Monday, the monsoon’s damage to agriculture reached P46.37 million and P2.4 million to livestock, poultry and fishery industry.
    The Banaue agriculture office said 17 of 18 barangays were hit by flash and mudslides.
    Data from the Dept. of Agriculture showed different figures.
    It said the amount of damage to agriculture caused by the monsoon climbed to P20.17 million Monday from 14.6 million on July 10.
    The flash floods affected 783 farmers and 346 hectares of agricultural areas, the DA said.
    Production losses increased to 928 metric tons, which include rice, high value crops and livestock.
    Authorities have yet to determine the amount of damage to properties and infrastructure.
    The regional DA office said more than P14.7 million worth of agricultural crops were damaged by flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains on six villages here July 7.
    The regional DA said over 200 hectares of rice farms and plantation areas of high-value crops were affected and over 700 metric tons of rice and high-value crops were reportedly damaged by the rain-induced landslides.
    However, disaster risk reduction and management officers are still assessing the extent of damages to government and private properties in the different parts of the municipality.
    The Municipal council approved the declaration of Banaue under a state of calamity following the enormous damage inflicted by the landslides and flash floods. This is also to allow the local government to use portions of its available disaster risk reduction and management funds to address the needs of the calamity-stricken victims.
Aside from the nearly P1 million worth of relief packs that were distributed by the personnel of the Cordillera office of the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development to the more than 500 families that were affected by the landslides, some P2 million worth of financial assistance were also distributed to the households.
    Based on the latest report from the DSWD-CAR, there were approximately 2,000 relief packs that had been made available for the affected families while clearing operations were still underway.
    The report said 329 houses were either totally or partly damaged while 326 houses were partly damaged in the landslide that was triggered by a downpour that lasted for two hours.
It added that more than 1,500 individuals were affected by the landslide.
    The Cordillera office of the Department of Tourism has issued an advisory to foreign and domestic visitors wanting to visit this supposedly mystical town to defer their scheduled travel until the clearing operations are completed.
    The two families whose houses were totally damaged received cash assistance amounting to P10,000 each, while the 327 families whose houses were partially damaged got some P5,000 financial assistance each.
    The three injured individuals were given financial assistance amounting to P5,000 each from the DSWD-CAR.
Various civic organizations also extended assistance to the landslide-affected families who sought temporary shelter from their relatives whose houses are on safer grounds while awaiting the ongoing clearing operations being undertaken along major road networks leading to the different parts of the municipality.
    Tourism-related activities in the municipality had been temporarily suspended to allow industry stakeholders to clear the debris.
    The famous Banaue Hotel was also closed for the meantime to allow government engineers to check its stability.
    The Cordillera office of the Department of Tourism issued an advisory for foreign and domestic tourists to defer their scheduled visits to the municipality until such time that the situation in the area has normalized.