At least 13 people have died and 23 remain missing as a result of severe flooding that has hit several regions in the southern and eastern Philippines since Saturday, the natural disasters agency reported Tuesday.
In its latest update, the national emergency team indicated that some 45,337 people are displaced from their homes by the floods, which affect more than 160,000 inhabitants of numerous towns in the country.
The southern island of Mindanao and the southeast of Luzon, the most inhabited island in the archipelago, were the areas most affected by the heavy rains that affected the country since the weekend, according to the Philippine Weather Service.
The rainfall has stopped and the water has already begun to recede, which helps emergency teams on Tuesday in their tasks to locate the missing.
One of the most affected areas is the province of Misamis Oriental, in the north of the island of Mindanao, where there were seven fatalities, five injured and three missing, says the National Council for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (NDRRMC). , for its acronym in English)
In Bicol province, southeast of Luzon, three people were killed and eight are still missing, according to NDRRMC.
The disaster marred Christmas celebrations in Asia’s most Catholic nation, where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos flock from urban centers to the provinces during the holidays.
Hit by between 15 and 20 cyclones each year, the Philippines is ranked among the nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Experts from international agencies point to shanty towns as the main factor in the large number of deaths caused by natural disasters in the country and which show the poor state of the infrastructure.