TAGBILARAN CITY — The Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) said Wednesday the province of Bohol posted zero casualty and zero damage from Tropical Depression Agaton earlier this week.
Such was contained in a report by PDRRMO chief Anthony Damalerio to Governor Edgar Chatto and the Regional DRRMO through the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).
This, even if “Agaton” left low-lying areas of Bohol under knee-deep floodwater and threatened landslide-prone areas along the mountainside, forcing around 400 families to leave their homes and spend the first day of the year in evacuation centers on Monday.
The evacuation was undertaken even before the tropical depression made landfall on Dinagat and Siargao Islands on Tuesday as Bohol experienced heavy rains that lasted for over an hour until almost 4 a.m.
The rains just slowed down when the tropical depression started moving to the west towards the south of Negros Oriental.
Damalerio said as of late Tuesday afternoon, relief goods had been delivered to evacuation centers in Loboc and landslide-prone Candijay town, where people remained even after the heavy rains had stopped.
In Batuan, five barangays had undertaken preemptive evacuation, but the evacuees returned home before daylight Wednesday.
Damalerio said they were supposed to bring relief goods to the area but the evacuated families had already returned to their respective houses.
The PDRRMO also received reports of flooding in Jagna, particularly in barangays Tejero and Pagina. Poblacion in Catigbian and some other areas of Batuan were also flooded.
However, the floodwater in these areas subsided when the heavy rains stopped.
The weather returned to normal Wednesday and regular classes resumed.
But the PDRRMO will continue monitoring the different flood- and landslide-prone areas in the province, considering that TD Agaton is forecast to leave the Philippine Area of Responsibility on Thursday evening yet, Damalerio added.
He attributed Bohol’s preparedness against disasters to the recent major threats such as Typhoons Urduja and Vinta, as well as the past experiences with major typhoons- -Queenie, Ruby and Seniang that hit the province. (Angeline Valencia/PNA)
