By Priam Nepomuceno | Philippine News Agency
The number of families affected by bad weather due to Typhoon Goring has climbed to 19,370, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported on Tuesday.
This is equivalent to 63,565 persons residing in 333 barangays in Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Western Visayas and the Cordillera Administrative Region.
Of this number, 4,049 families or 14,856 persons are being served in 154 evacuation centers while another 2,628 families or 10,116 individuals are being aided outside.
The NDRRMC has yet to receive reports of any casualties as of this time.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) earlier said the affected families are those displaced and those not needing transfer or removal from their residence.
The OCD also said it is continuing to coordinate response operations with its regional counterparts and other government agencies to ensure assistance in typhoon-affected areas.
“Together with other government agencies and uniformed services, we continue to ensure that everything needed for response operations is in place. On the part of OCD, as the executive arm of the NDRRMC, we continue to monitor the situation and coordinate response operations,” OCD administrator and NDRRMC executive director Ariel Nepomuceno said in a statement Monday night.
“We have activated the emergency preparedness and response or the EPR protocols in various regions. These are prescribed measures that need to be taken in the areas. Also, the NDRRMC’s response clusters, led by different agencies, were activated,” Nepomuceno added.
The government has established 11 response clusters to ensure a systematic response to the effects of disasters.
These are search, rescue and retrieval; health; internally displaced population; camp coordination and camp management; food and non-food items; logistics; law and order; emergency telecommunications; education; Philippine international humanitarian assistance and management of the dead and missing. – gb