Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/ MANILA: Christmas Day floods in the Philippines forced an evacuation of nearly 46,000 people from their houses, civil defence officials said Monday.
The officials said that two people had been killed and nine others missing after heavy seasonal rain inundated parts of a southern region of Mindanao.
A disaster dampened the celebration of the mainly Catholic nation’s most important holiday.
Civil defence personnel Robinson Lacre said that around 33,000 of the 45,700 people have evacuated from their houses in Gingoog city. The waters have risen above the chest in some places, but today the rains have ceased.
The coast guard said that it rescued more than two dozen families in Ozamiz and Clarin cities at the height of the flooding.
According to the AFP, the central and southern Philippines had been hit by bad weather as the disaster-prone nation of 110 million people started a Christmas holiday.
Two deaths were reported in the city of Jimenez.
Most people travel to their hometowns for family members’ reunions during this period.
Coast guard force
The coast guard force has said that strong winds and big waves sank a fishing boat on Christmas Day off the coast of the central island of Leyte. Two crew members have been killed, while six others have been rescued.
The Philippines has ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change.
