BARMM's storm death toll now 40

COTABATO CITY --- The death toll from flashfloods and landslides in the adjoining Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur due to Tropical Storm Paeng is now 40, officials announced Saturday.

Emergency responders from the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division, the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READi) group of the Bangsamoro government, the Bureau of Fire Protection and the police are still searching for 15 missing persons in areas hit by landslides.

Citing reports from the field, Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo, who is overseeing the operation of READi, said 115, 437, families, or 577,496 individuals got displaced by the deadly landslides and flashfloods that swept through villages in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur last Friday.

The rapid deployment READi contingent has calamity and disaster responders with ambulances and watercrafts for massive rescue missions.

Rescuers have also extended medical interventions to 31 people who sustained injuries when rocks and mud cascaded from hillsides and destroyed their houses in seaside villages in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte.

Most of the 40 people who perished Friday were from dwelling sites in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, hit by landslides following six hours of heavy rains in the surroundings.

Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on Saturday declared the whole of BARMM under state of calamity.

There are still scattered rains in parts of  Maguindanao del Norte until noontime Saturday.

6^th ID’s commander, Major Gen. Roy Galido, and Sinarimbo separately told reporters, after a meeting with Ebrahim at the BARMM capitol here Saturday, that more Army and civilian emergency responders are to be deployed in areas devastated by storm.

“Our units in central Mindanao have been directed to immediately provide whatever assistance is needed by residents displaced by this calamity,” Galido said.

Members of the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament, among them Baintan Adil-Ampatuan and Rasul Enderez Esmael, inspected the flood-stricken areas in Barangay Kusiong to help assess the extent of the damages wrought by Tropical Storm Paeng.

Rosslaine Alonto-Sinarimbo, director-general of BARMM’s trade ministry, said they are now monitoring prices of food supplies sold in establishments here and in the two Maguindanao provinces to prevent undue increases by unscrupulous traders who could take advantage of the situation to increase the costs of consumer goods they sell.

“We shall also reach out to existing business blocs in Cotabato City, in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte in furthering that objective,” Alonto-Sinarimbo said.