The Special Geographic Area of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (SGA-BARMM) has been placed under a state of calamity due to continuing heavy rains that spawned widespread overflows of the Mindanao River.
Quoting a resolution passed by the SGA Development Authority (SGADA) Council, Butch Malang, SGDA administrator, said 27 of the 63 SGA-BARMM villages have been underwater since Thursday.
The state weather bureau said the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) triggered heavy rains in the past few days.
Malang, who is also the Disaster-Risk Management head of the BARMM SGADA, said up to 25,946 families from the 27 barangays, comprising 60.21% of SGA population, have been affected or displaced by the floods.
He said 329 hectares of rice and other crops were damaged beyond recovery in those areas.
Because of this, Malang said the council decided to pass a resolution placing all 63 SGA barangays under a state of calamity.
BARMM’s Bangsamoro Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READi) had earlier raised its alert level from white to blue category.
Under the blue alert level, BARMM-READi designates all its rescue vehicle to standby alert status to be on-call any time for deployment, said Norhassim Sinarimbo, head of that Bangsamoro emergency unit under the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG).
