Winds destroy 83 houses, farms in North Cotabato’s `rice granary’
Local News • 11:00 AM Mon Dec 11, 2023
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By:
John Felix Unson
One of the 83 structures in Kabacan, North Cotabato that strong winds destroyed this weekend. (From Kabacan MDRRMO)
COTABATO CITY - Up to 83 houses were destroyed and more than a hundred hectares of rice farms were damaged by extraordinarily strong winds that battered four barangays in Kabacan town in North Cotabato province over the weekend.
The Kabacan Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, personnel of the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade and emergency responders from the North Cotabato provincial government are together providing affected residents with essential humanitarian support to ease their plight.
Kabacan Mayor Evangeline Pascua Guzman on Monday told reporters that personnel of their Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office are still out initiating full assessment of the real extent of the damages to properties and displacement of villagers that the calamity that ravaged Barangays Osias, Katidtuan, Lower Paatan and Malamote had caused.
“No one was hurt as a result of the destruction of many houses in the four barangays but the situation of the affected families is so saddening,” Guzman said.
Guzman said their emergency response operations in Osias, Katidtuan, Lower Paatan and Malamote are being assisted by the North Cotabato provincial government.
The strong winds that hit the four barangays had also damaged more than a hundred hectares of rice farms, according to local officials in Kabacan, touted as the “rice granary” of North Cotabato province.
