TACLOBAN CITY—Slow-moving typhoon Urduja left at least 26 people dead and 30 missing in Eastern Visayas, with 23 casualties recorded in Biliran where most of victims were buried alive by two landslides in two different towns of the province.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in the region said the typhoon displaced 48,536 families affecting 211,549 individuals from 421 barangays across Eastern Visayas. More than half of the evacuees were from Eastern Samar where the typhoon made a landfall.
The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in Biliran reported 14 were confirmed dead, eight of them children, in Barangay Cabidihan in Caibiran town when a landslide occurred around 6:30 last Saturday evening.
Caibiran Mayor Eulalio Maderazo said the continuous rain in the last four days prior to the landslide softened the soil in the hilly portion of Sitio Macalpi, causing the loose soil to erode.
Raul Villordon, the municipal disaster-risk reduction and management officer of Naval, said 29 were buried in the landslide in Barangay Lucsoon, but six were confirmed alive and staying in one house, but were trapped under the rubbles. One member of the household texted a friend to say they were alive but could not get out.
Five families in five houses were living in the area where the landslide happened, where 29 individuals were living.
So far, six bodies have been retrieved.
Barangay Locsoon is 2 kilometers (km) to 3 km away from the downtown area.
When the interview was conducted on Sunday morning, only seven of the 14 victims were recovered, three of them children. Search-and-retrieval operations were being conducted at the time. Later in the afternoon on Sunday, PDRRMC of Biliran declared all 14 as casualties and nobody missing.
Biliran PDRRMC also reported four bodies were recovered and 23 others were still missing, caused by another massive landslide in Barangay Lucsoon in Naval, the provincial center of Biliran.
Search-and-retrieval operations were still ongoing as of press time, but was hampered by lack of heavy equipment that would expedite the retrieval of the victims. Until noon on Sunday, rescuers said they still heard voices under the rocks and mud, indicating some of those buried were still alive.
In other parts of Biliran the PDRRMO also reported four casualties and two injuries in the town of Almeria; and one dead, three missing and eight injured in Biliran town. Four other towns of the province did not report casualties or missing persons.
In Leyte the OCD reported a child, aged 2, died of drowning in the town of Mahaplag.
In Ormoc City two fatalities were confirmed, one each from barangays Tambulilid and Tongonan, while three others were swept away by floodwaters in Barangay Liloan and were declared missing.
Four fishermen, three from Eastern Samar and one from Southern Leyte were declared missing. All four were reported to have gone to sea to fish on December 13 and did not return home.
Urduja brought strong and continuous rain to Eastern Visayas since Thursday, causing massive floods in many parts of Eastern Samar and Leyte.
Packing gusts up to 120 kph, Urduja was moving at a speed of only 5 kph until it gained speed of up to 15kph toward the afternoon last Saturday when it was spotted in the vicinity of San Jose de Buan in Samar.
The long and continuous rain caused a number of landslides in many areas, making many roads and bridges impassable as of press time.
Flooding was reported in nine towns of Samar, 16 towns in Leyte, including Tacloban City and 16 towns in Eastern Samar.
Commuters on a land trip from Manila to Mindanao, as well as goods transported on land, remained on hold as a roadslip occurred on a short section of Daang Maharlika in Barangay Laylagayun in Pinabacdao, Samar.
The alternate route – through a newly constructed road from Paranas, Samar and passing through most past of Eastern Eastern Samar, including Borongan – remains impassable due to flooding in a portoon of Eastern Samar.
A state of calamity was declared in Tacloban City, where an estimated 100,000 people were affected by flooding. Other municipalities that declared states of emergency were Barugo and Tanauan in Leyte, Zumarraga in Samar, and the towns of Dolores, Can-Avid, Giporlos, Quinapondan and Llotente in Eastern Samar.
The Sanggunianng Panlalawigan in Northern Samar also passed a resolution declaring a state of calamity in the whole province as of December 15.