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As deaths mount, the aid agency says it fears for the safety of thousands of people trapped by flooding in the Cagayan Valley.
The death toll from the deadliest cyclone to hit the Philippines this year rose to 67, with 12 people still missing, according to the country’s national disaster management agency.
President Rodrigo Duterte was scheduled to fly to the northern province of Tuguegarao on Sunday to assess the situation in the Cagayan Valley region, which was heavily flooded after Typhoon Vamco dumped rain over swaths of the main island of Luzon, including the capital, metropolitan Manila.
Twenty-two deaths were recorded in Cagayan, 17 in the southern provinces of Luzon, eight in Metro Manila and 20 in two other regions, disaster agency spokesman Mark Timbal said.
Twenty-one people were injured, he said.
Many areas in Cagayan, a rice and corn producing region of 1.2 million people, remained submerged until Sunday, according to an aid agency and media reports.
Heavy flooding, caused by the accumulated effects of previous climatic disturbances, as well as water from a dam and the higher plains have affected thousands of families, some of whom had fled to rooftops to escape flooding from two floors.
The International Federation of the Red Cross said 47,000 people have been rescued so far, but it “fears for the safety and well-being of thousands who remain trapped.”
“Our teams are urgently searching for people caught in these horrific floods and rescuing people who have been forced to camp on their roofs,” said Philippine Red Cross President Richard Gordon. “These floods are a calamity and the worst we have seen in Cagayan in at least 40 years.”
Damage to agricultural products due to the floods was initially set at 1.2 billion pesos ($ 25 million), while damage to infrastructure was estimated at 470 million pesos ($ 9.7 million), Timbal said , from the disaster agency.
About 26,000 houses were also damaged, he said.
Relief and rescue operations continued as water at the nearby Magat Dam continued to gush, two days after releasing a volume equivalent to two Olympic-size swimming pools per second, according to government data.
Vamco, the 21st cyclone to hit the Philippines this year, tore through Luzon on Wednesday night, causing the worst flooding in years in parts of the capital.
It followed super typhoon Goni, the most powerful storm in the world this year, which brought heavy rain to the southern provinces of Luzon and killed many people just days earlier.
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