Butuan City '90% under water'

MANILA, Philippines- Temporary shelters in Butuan City are becoming filled to the brim with the latest wave of evacuations Tuesday night.

Residents whose homes have been inundated have cramped in classrooms where as much as a hundred families are forced to seek refuge.

Butuan City Mayor Ferdinand Amante told national disaster officials that their city is now 90% underwater.

At the Florencio Sibayan Elementary School in Butuan City, the homeless await relief goods such as food and water. But medicines are scarce and children are getting sick. One evacuee, Edmundo Gutierrez worries over the lack of medicines.

"Kinahanglan na diri mga tambal kay naay mga sakit sa tiyan ug mga katol (we need medicines for stomach aches and skin diseases)," Gutierrez said.

Respiratory ailments also plague evacuation centers -- the very young, being the most vulnerable.

The city's Social Welfare Office says it can only do so much in providing for those seeking refuge in temporary shelters.

The DSWD admits, as evacuees suffer from various ailments, donated medicines are now as essential as food and water. The city government is also calling for more donations for clothes as evacuees have run out of dry clothes.

Critical levels in Agusan River

Many of the evacuees have left their homes, farms and farm animals and with the continuing floods agriculture damage could be dire. Tuesday night, water levels at the Agusan River reached a critical level of 3.55 meters.

Many low-lying villages in Butuan City have fled their homes. In the midst of battering rain and severe flooding, rescue groups

For farmer Cresencia Balbuena, the non stop rains brought staggering losses for her farming business. Her recently planted rice fields now resemble a river.

"Nabalaka ko unsaon pagbayad sa utang. dili na ko mokita kay naanod naman (I worry about my debts. I lost everything to floods)," said Balbuena.

Damage to agriculture cannot be pegged at this time as access to many municipalities in the region are blocked by floods.

300% more rain

According to PAGASA, unusual rain volume has been recorded in the Caraga region. Surigao City in particular received almost 300% more rain than normal or 271 milimeters of rain, while cities like Butuan received at least 207 milimeters of rain on January 31, 2011.

PAGASA's Nathaniel Servando said rain above 180 milimeters is already considered heavy. At a press conference in Manila on Wednesday, the weather bureau said more rains brought about by the La Niña Phenomenon can affect CARAGA, Northern Mindanao or Eastern Visayas.

A total of 22 municipalities are now affected by floods in the CARAGA region. Latest National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council or NDRRMC said 4 of these are in Agusan Del Norte, 4 in Agusan Del Sur, Surigao Del Sur, 5 and Surigao Del Norte, 9 towns.

Floods brought about by continuous rains in the eastern seaboard have already affected 300,000 residents in most of CARAGA region, or about 1.4 million individuals. With reports from Trini Velasco and Charmane Awitan, ABS-CBN News Northern Mindanao.

source: abs-cbn news