ROXAS City — There had been no deaths and disappearances related to typhoon “Ruby” in Capiz, disaster management and government officials said.
Gov. Victor A. Tanco credited this to the cooperation of the authorities and the Capisnons.
Tanco said the province posted a “record” number of evacuees: 26,563 families, or 110,928 individuals, in 702 evacuation centers.
Strong winds and rains brought by “Ruby” affected 62,608 families, or 276,637 individuals, in 386 barangays all over the province, according to the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC).
“They (the people) saved themselves,” said the governor.
Forty-one injuries, however, had been reported: Pan-ay, eight; Dao, Roxas City, Jamindan, and Pilar, five; President Roxas, four; Pontevedra and Dumarao, three; and Cuartero, one, said the PDRRMC.
The typhoon did not totally spare the province of damage. There were 917 damaged houses in Dumalag, 11 in Panay, one each in Maayon and Dumarao. Three houses had been destroyed in Pan-ay.
Nine municipalities had declared under “state of calamity”: Pan-ay, Maayon, Panitan, Pilar, President Roxas, Cuartero, Sapian, Dumalag, and Ivisan.
The cost of damage to infrastructure was estimated at P17,318,623, PDRRMC records as of Dec. 9 showed. It was broken down as follows:
- Dumarao – P 3,078,906
- Pilar – P 2,166,480
- Tapaz – P 1,710,576
- Maayon – P 1,511,784
- Mambusao – P 1,379,244
- Sigma – P 1,344,820
- Panay – P 1,081, 123
- Jamindan – P 1,042,488
- President Roxas – P 974,520
- Panitan – P 917,561
- Dumalag – P 740,160
- Ivisan – P 559,152
- Sapian – P 434,304
- Dao – P 332,560
- Roxas City – P 36,000
- Pontevedra – P 21,600
- Cuartero – P 7,344.
Some P5,398,508.69 worth of fishery products were damaged in Pontevedra.
A total of 6,811.5 hectares of rice fields in 13 towns and 1,010 hectares of corn fields in eight towns had been damaged, too, PDRRMC records showed.
PDRRMC continues to collect damage reports from the municipalities.
Disaster management officials, soldiers and police officers, among others, gathered for a “coordination meeting” on Dec. 8 in the PDRRMC Operations Center at the Capiz Provincial Capitol here.
Mel Schmidt, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs sub-office in Region 6, cited three important elements in preparing for typhoons:
- preemptive evacuation
- prepositioning of goods and decentralization of evacuation centers, and
- coordination among the government, police, armed forces, and humanitarian groups.(RALPH JOHN MIJARES/PN)
