Manila [Philippines], December 27: Flooding during Christmas in the Philippines has left eight people dead, 19 missing and nearly 46,000 displaced.
Philippine civil defense officials said on December 26 that flooding during the Christmas holiday in the country had forced nearly 46,000 people to evacuate.
Officials say eight people have been killed and 19 others missing after a week-long torrential downpour in southern and eastern regions of the country.
Floods swept through the southern Philippines on December 25, forcing people in the predominantly Catholic country to cancel activities during the most important holiday of the year.
"The water was up to chest in some areas, but today the rain has stopped," civil defense officer Robinson Lacre said by phone from Gingoog city in Misamis Oriental province, home to 33,000 of the 45,700 people. have to leave home.
The Philippine Coast Guard said it had rescued members of more than two dozen families in the city of Ozamiz in the southern province of Misamis Oriental, and the nearby town of Clarin when the flooding reached its peak.
Photos released by the coast guard show rescuers carrying babies out of their homes at night in waist-deep floodwaters.
Four deaths - three of them drowning - have been reported in the nearby towns of Jimenez and Tudela.
The coast guard also said strong winds and high waves sank a fishing boat on Christmas Day off the central island of Leyte. Two fishermen were killed and six others were rescued.
Two others, including a girl, drowned in the eastern Philippine towns of Libmanan and Tinambac after floods swept through days before Christmas, the civil defense office said.
Nineteen people are still missing, most of them fishermen who set sail despite harsh conditions days before Christmas.
The weather took a turn for the worse as the nation of 110 million prepares for a long Christmas holiday. This is the time when millions of people return to their hometowns to reunite with their families.
The Philippines is among the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming stronger as the world warms.
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper
