At least 13 people have died and 23 are missing in floods since Saturday in various regions of the southern and eastern Philippines, the natural disaster management agency said Tuesday.
In the latest update, the Philippine emergency team said that around 45,337 people are displaced from their homes due to the floods, which are affecting more than 160,000 people in many cities across the country.
The island of Mindanao, in the south of the archipelago, and the southeast of Luzon, the most populous island, were the areas most affected by heavy rains since the weekend, according to the Philippine Weather Service.
The rains have stopped and the water has started to recede, which is helping emergency teams to locate the missing.
The disaster marred Christmas celebrations in Asia’s most Catholic nation, where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos move from urban centers to the provinces for the festive season.
The Philippines is among the nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Experts from international organizations pointed to the poor state of the infrastructure and the precariousness of housing as one of the main factors in the high number of deaths from natural disasters in the country.
Source: TSF
