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Navy rescues 80 villagers in flood-hit Leyte


The Philippine Navy has rescued in the past few days nearly 80 people in Leyte province, which has been battered by heavy rains and strong winds this week. PN spokesman Capt. Giovanni Carlo Bacordo said a Navy team from Tacloban City rushed to Barangay San Antonio in Palo town on Wednesday evening after receiving a report that floods were ravaging the area. The team rescued 26 residents, including 19 children, and brought them to an evacuation center. The next day, on Thursday, the Navy rescuers proceeded to Barangay Cangumbang and rescued 53 villagers, including 29 children, at about 6 a.m. The nine-member Navy team, led by Ens. Pablito Cometa Jr., is part of the PN’s Disaster Rescue and Response Unit. Latest data from the Office of Civil Defense showed that at least 10 people have so far been killed due to the floods in various Visayas provinces: nine from Leyte, and one from Bohol, according to a separate report from GMA News TV's On-Call. Aside from the two provinces, several villages in Misamis Oriental are reeling from the effects of the continuous downpour since Wednesday. Some 15,000 villagers from 237 villages in the Eastern Visayas region are affected by the floods. The regional Coast Guard has begun deploying its rubber boats to rescue trapped residents and bring them to evacuation centers. Around 3,000 people are currently staying inside evacuation centers in Leyte, but the local government refused to place the province under a state of calamity, saying there are still enough food and medicine supplies. The heavy volume of rainfall dumped in the region in the past two days (Wednesday and Thursday), which was measured at 400 millimeters, triggered wide-scale flooding. Classes have been suspended in some areas, while major roads like the Maharlika National Highway in Tacloban City remain closed to traffic.—Mark D. Merueñas/JV, GMA News

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