Antique turned into ‘one big sea’

IN what is regarded as the worst flooding to hit Western Visayas, most of the Panay Island provinces of Iloilo, Aklan, Capiz and Antique went under water last week as typhoon Frank, packing heavy rains and strong winds, made its rampage.

Antique Governor Sally Zaldivar-Perez described it rather aptly. For two consecutive days (June 21 and 22), her province, she said, turned into “one big sea.”

The disaster has been too costly for Antique, an agricultural and coastal province with a population of about 472,000 (as of 2000) largely isolated from the rest of Panay island by mountain ranges on its eastern border. Its share of damages to agriculture from typhoon Frank’s lashing is pegged at P116.4 million (third after Iloilo and Capiz), with some 2,000 hectares of agricultural lands rendered unusable by the inundation. The province also sustained damages to infrastructure amounting to P120 million (second to Aklan), according to the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council 6 (RDCC 6).

Infrastructure damage include knocked down telephone and electricity lines, bridges (in Valderrama, San Remigio, and Tibiao), 15 schools (six requiring new constructions), one hospital (Ramon Maza Sr. District Hospital), and 93.44 kilometers of provincial roads. Communal irrigation facilities costing P25 million were also destroyed.

The Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council (PDCC), which Perez chairs, has also placed the total number of Antiqueños affected by the disaster at 115,413, or about 25, 883 families, in 343 barangays. As of June 26, there were 37 dead and 33 injured persons, even as 60 remain missing.

The northern parts of the province have remained inaccessible due to landslides. Relief efforts have yet to reach these areas.

(Acknowledgment: Above photos are courtesy of the PDCC in Antique. More photos of the devastation wrought by typhoon Frank in the province are available here, here, and here.)