ILOILO City – Western Visayans are breathing a sigh of relief. Typhoon “Rolly” spared the region, only bringing with it light scattered rains over the weekend.
By late Sunday, “Rolly”, which at one point was one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, weakened to a tropical storm, according the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).
There were no reports of flooding and landslide in two highly-urbanized cities and six provinces in the region as of Nov. 2, according to Aletha Nogra, chief of the disaster risk reduction and management division of the regional Office of Civil Defense (OCD).
Also, there were no reported damages or losses in agriculture, fishery and infrastructure, Nogra added.
But 1,827 families or 7,212 persons in 68 barangays moved to 94 evacuation centers or sought shelter with relatives and friends, data from the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC).
Sea trips in Aklan, Capiz and Antique were cancelled.
At the Caticlan Airport in Malay, Aklan, 190 passengers got stranded due to cancelled flights.
Pagasa raised storm signal warnings in portions of in the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, and Iloilo on Saturday evening. These warnings were lifted Sunday morning.
Nogra commended the preparations carried out by local disaster risk reduction and management councils.
In the northern part of Iloilo province, the typhoon did not have much effect on 11 municipalities (Ajuy, Barotac Viejo, Sara, Concepcion, San Dionisio, Batad, Lemery, Balasan, Estancia, Carles, and San Rafael) in the 5th District, according to Atty. Suzette Mamon, acting provincial administrator.
“So far, wala kita sang nabaton nga report from northern Iloilo. Sa aton water level sa mga suba wala sang report nga pagtaas, normal man gihapon ang level sang tubig,” said Mamon.
The provincial government’s disaster cluster, however, remains on full alert. Another storm is approaching, “Siony.”
According to Pagasa, “Siony” will likely to continue to move west-northwest or northwest before slowing down and becoming almost stationary by Tuesday morning through Wednesday morning.
It will likely remain a tropical storm within the next 36 to 48 hours, it added.
Although Iloilo province is not included in the projected track of “Siony”, Mamon said the provincial government prepositioned dump trucks and five response teams in the northern towns.
Last week, typhoon “Quinta” caused an estimated P88.8 million damage to agriculture and fishery sectors of Region 6.
Of the figure, an estimated of P13.1 worth of damage in fisheries was recorded and P75.7 million in agriculture which included palay, vegetables and other major crops.
“Quinta” also displaced more than 600 families consisting of 2,700 individuals.
Meanwhile, a total of 105 houses were damaged by the typhoon./PN
