By: Jingwei Zhao
In the late October of this year, the Philippines suffered a major flash flood. The brutal natural disaster left around 50 people are dead, and many feared missing. Many of the missing people are believed to be buried in mudslides that were made up of rocks, trees, and other debris. Others may have drowned in the floodwater. While many regions of the Philippines suffered greatly, the area hit the worst was the tribal village of Kusiong.
The flood caused a mudslide, which buried multiple houses and over 60 people. Many of the survivors were scarred by images of the treacherous flood in their minds. In the commotion, Army Lt. Col. Dennis Almorato decided to visit the site. He described the number of buried houses as “overwhelming.” Bodies were found in mudslides near the ruined houses, with most being children.
This disaster is one of the worst that the region had seen in decades. Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region stated, “It (the village) was hit by torrents of rainwater with mud, rocks and trees that washed out houses.” Luckily, the village is accessible by road, which allows more rescuers to be deployed there.
After citing many reports from disaster-response officials, Sinarimbo stated that 27 died in the town of Datu Odin Sinsuat, ten in the town of Datu Blah Sinsuat, and another five in Yupi Town. The total number of deaths has been confirmed with 67 tragic losses.
Due to the severity of the flooding, many people had to crawl and stand on their house roofs if they wanted to survive. However, even in this tragic tale, there are a few happy moments.
Many provinces foresaw the floods and storms and evacuated cities, which saved the lives of the 158,000 people. In the aftermath, many of the people who wanted to travel to the Philippines could not because the coast guards of the country said that it was too dangerous.
Floods like these are not as uncommon as people think. The Philippines Archipelago is in the Ring of Fire, which makes it one of the dangerous places to live in the whole world.
So far, this year has had all sorts of unpredictable weather moments. Why? Global warming is the one to blame. Billions of people release tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each day. This causes more water to evaporate, thus allowing more rainfall in general. With enough rainfall, floods will rise and other places in the world may suffer what happened to the Philippines.